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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



IN UNIFORM BINDING 



THE UNITY OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS 

By WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, D.D., LL.D. 

Professor of Oriental and Old Testament Literature in 

Princeton Theological Seminary 



8vo, $3.00 



THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF 
THE PENTATEUCH 



THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF 
THE PENTATEUCH 



WILLIAM LTENBY GEEEX, D.D., LL.D. 

PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL AND OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE IX PRINCETON 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 






kiyl^OUX. 



NEW YORK 

CHAELES SCEIBNEE'S SONS 

1895 






COPYRIGHT, 1895, BT 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



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PREFACE 



<" The Higher Criticism has been of late so associated 
with extravagant theorizing, and with insidious attacks 
upon the genuineness and credibility of the books of the 
Bible that the very term has become an offence to seri- 
ous minds. It has come to be considered one of the 
most dangerous forms of infidelity, and in its very nature 
hostile to revealed truth. And it must be confessed that 
in the hands of those who are unfriendly to supernatural 
religion it has proved a potent weapon in the interest of 
unbelief. Nor has the use made of it by those who, 
while claiming to be evangelical critics, accept and de- 
fend the revolutionary conclusions of the antisupernatur- 
alists, tended to remove the discredit into which it has 
fallen. 

This is not the faidt of the Higher Criticism in its 
genuine sense, however, but of its perversion. Prop- 
erly speaking it is an inquiry into the origin and char- 
acter of the writings to which it is applied. It seeks to 
ascertain by all available means the authors by whom, 
the time at which, the circumstances under which, and 
the design with which they were produced. Such inves- 
tigations, rightly conducted, must prove a most important 
aid to the understanding and just appreciation of the 
writings in question. 

The books of the Bible have nothing to fear from such 
investigations, however searching and thorough, and how- 
ever fearlessly pursued. They can only result in estab- 
lishing more firmly the truth of the claims, which the 



VI PREFACE 

Bible makes for itself, in every particular. The Bible 
stands upon a rock from which it can never be dislodged. 

The genuineness and historical truth of the Books of 
Moses have been strenuously impugned in the name of 
the Higher Criticism. It has been claimed as one of its 
most certain results, scientifically established, that they 
have been falsely ascribed to Moses, and were in reality 
produced at a much later period. It is affirmed that the 
history is by no means reliable and merely records the 
uncertain and variant traditions of a post-Mosaic age ; 
and that the laws are not those of Moses, but the growth 
of centuries after his time. All this is demonstrably 
based on false and sophistical reasoning, which rests on 
unfounded assumptions and employs weak and inconclu- 
sive arguments. 

It is the purpose of this volume to show, as briefly and 
compactly as possible, that the faith of all past ages in 
respect to the Pentateuch has not been mistaken. It is 
what it claims to be, and what it has always been be- 
lieved to be. In the first chapter it is exhibited in its 
relation to the Old Testament as a whole, of which it is 
not only the initial portion, but the basis or foundation 
upon which the entire superstructure reposes ; or rather, 
it contains the germs from which all that follows was 
developed. In the second, the plan and contents of the 
Pentateuch are unfolded. It has one theme, which is 
consistently adhered to, and which is treated with or- 
derly arrangement and upon a carefully considered plan 
suggestive of a single author. In the third it is shown 
by a variety of arguments, both external and internal, 
that this author was Moses. The various forms of oppo- 
sition to this conclusion are then outlined and separately 
considered. First, the weakness of the earlier objections 
from anachronisms and inconsistencies is shown. In the 
fourth chapter the divisive hypotheses, which have in 



PKEFACE vil 

succession been maintained in opposition to the unity of 
the Pentateuch, are reviewed and shown to be baseless, 
and the arguments urged in their support are refuted. 
In the fifth chapter the genuineness of the laws is de- 
fended against the development hypothesis. And in the 
sixth and last chapter these hypotheses are shown to be 
radically unbiblical. They are hostile alike to the truth 
of the Pentateuch and to the supernatural revelation 
which it contains. 

Princeton, N. J. , August 1, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

i 

PAGE 

The Old Testament and its Structure, 1 

The Old Testament addressed in the first instance to Israel 
and in the language of that people ; the New Testament to 
all mankind and in the language of the civilized world. The 
former composed by many writers in the course of a thousand 
3, 1 ; not an aggregate of detached productions, but pos- 
of an organic structure, 2 ; of which each book is a 
constituent element, 3, with its special function. The three- 
fold division of the Hebrew Bible, 4, resting on the official 
position of the writers, 5. The Lamentations an apparent ex- 
ception, 6. Two methods of investigating organic structure, 
7. First, trace from the beginning. The Pentateuch, histor- 
ical, poetical, 8, and prophetical books, 9. Second, survey 
from the end, viz., Christ ; advantages of this method, 10. 
Predictive periods, negative and positive ; division of the Old 
Testament thence resulting, 11-13. Two modes of division 
compared, 14. General relation of the three principal sec- 
tions, 15-17. 

II 

The Plan and Contents op the Pentateuch, 18 

Names of the books of Moses, origin of the fivefold divis- 
ion, 18. Theme of the Pentateuch ; two parts, historical and 
legal, 19 ; preliminary portion, 20 ; its negative and positive 
aim, 21. Creation to the Flood, primeval holiness and the 
fall ; salvation and perdition ; segregation, 22 ; divine insti- 
tutions. The Flood to Abraham, 23. Call of Abraham. Two 
stages in the development of Israel. The family ; Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, 24. The nation ; negative and positive prepa- 
ration for the exodus ; the march to Sinai. The legislation ; 
at Sinai 25, in the wilderness of Paran, in the plains of Moab, 
26-28 ; one theme, definite plan, continuous history, 29, sug- 
gestive of a single writer. Tabular view, 30. 



X CONTENTS 

III 

PAGE 

Moses the Authok op the Pentateuch, 31 

Importance of the Pentateuch, 31. Mosaic authorship as 
related to credibility. (1) Traditional opinion among the 
Jews ; testimony of the New Testament, 32, not mere accom- 
modation to prevailing sentiment. (2) Testimony of the Old 
Testament, 33-35. (3) Declarations of the Pentateuch ; the 
Book of the Covenant ; the Priest code ; the Deuteronomic 
code, 36 ; two historical passages ascribed to Moses, which 
imply much more, 37, 38 ; intimate relation of the history to 
the legislation. (4) The language of the laws points to the 
Mosaic period, 39, 40 ; indicates that they were written then. 
Moses's farewell addresses, song and blessing, 41. The laws 
could not be forged ; locality of these enactments. (5) The Pen- 
tateuch alluded to or its existence implied in the subsequent 
books of the Bible, 42. (6) Known and its authority admitted 
in the kingdom of the ten tribes, 43 ; no valid argument from 
.the Samaritan Pentateuch, 44 ; proof from the history of the 
schism and the books of the prophets. (7) Elementary char- 
acter of its teachings. (8) Egyptian words and allusions, 45. 
Assaults in four distinct lines, 46. The earliest objections ; 
ancient heretics ; Jerome misinterpreted ; Isaac ben Jasos ; 
Aben Ezra, 47 ; Peyrerius ; Spinoza ; Hobbes ; Richard 
Simon, 48 ; Le Clerc ; answered by "Witsius and Carpzov, 49. 
The alleged anachronisms and other objections of no account, 
50, 51. Note : Testimony of Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 52 ; 2 
Samuel, Kings, 53; Joel, Isaiah, 54 ; Micah, Jeremiah, 55; 
Psalms. Allusions in Hosea and Amos to the facts of the 
Pentateuch, 56 ; to its laws, 57 ; coincidences of thought or 
expression, 58. 

IV 

The Unity op the Pentateuch, 59 

Meaning of unity, 59 ; illustration from Bancroft ; the 
Gospels, 60. The Document Hypothesis ; Vitringa, 61 ; As- 
true, Eichhorn, Gramberg, 62. (1) Elohim and Jehovah, 63. 
(2) Each class of sections continuous. (3) Parallel passages, 
64. (4) Diversity of diction and ideas, 65, 66. At first con- 
fined to Genesis ; not conflict with Mosaic authorship until 
extended to the entire Pentateuch, 67 ; even then not neces- 



CONTENTS 

sarily, unless the documents are post-Mosaic ; Ex. vi. 3, 68. 
Jehovist suspected of anachronisms, inaccuracies, and contra- 
dictions, 69 ; inferred from parallel passages, 70. Fragment 
Hypothesis, Vater, Hartmann, 71 ; supported by similar 
arguments, 72 ; the Document Hypothesis reacting against it- 
self, 73 ; titles and subscriptions, 74. But (1) The extensive 
literature assumed. (2) The continuity and orderly arrange- 
ment of the Pentateuch, 75. (3) The numerous cross ref- 
erences. Refuted by Ewald and F. H. Ranke. Supplement 
Hypothesis, Bleek, Tuch, Stahelin, De Wette, Knobel, 76, 77. 
This accounts for certain evidences of unity but not for 
others. Inconsistent relation of the Jehovist to the Elohist, 
78, 79 ; attempted explanations destructive of the hypothesis, 
80. Refuted by Kurtz, Drechsler, Havernick, Keil, Hengsten- 
berg, Welte. Crystallization Hypothesis of Ewald, 81, 82. 
Modified Document Hypothesis of Hupfeld ; Ilgen, Boehmer, 
Schrader, 82, 83. But (1) The second Elohist destroys the 
continuity of the first. (2) The first Elohist almost ceases soon 
after Gen. xx. where the second begins, 84. (3) Intricate 
blending of Jehovist and second Elohist. (4) First Elohist 
alleged to be clearly distinguishable ; without force as an ar- 
gument, 85. (5) Capricious and inconsistent conduct attrib- 
uted to the redactor, 86 ; undermines the hypothesis. Bur- 
densome complexity inevitable, 87. Critical symbols. The 
grounds of literary partition considered, 88. I. The divine 
names ; their alternation not coincident with successive sec- 
tions, 89 ; this fundamental criterion annulled by unsettling 
the text, 90. Elohim in J sections ; Jehovah in P and E 
sections, 91. Examples given, 92-98. Ex. vi. 2, 3, 99. 
Misinterpretation corrected, 100. Not written with an anti- 
quarian design ; neither was the patriarchal history, 101. 
Gen. iv. 26. Signification and usage of Elohim and Jehovah, 
102, 103. Hengstenberg's theory, 103, 104. That of Kurtz, 
105. Liberty in the use of the divine names. II. Continuity 
of sections, 106. But (1) numerous chasms and abrupt tran- 
sitions, 107. (2) Bridged by scattered clauses. (3) Apparent 
connection factitious, 108. (4) Interrelation of documents. 
(5) Inconsistency of critics. III. Parallel passages. But (1) 
Often not real parallels, 109. (2) Repetition accounted for, 
110. (3) Summary statement followed by particulars, 111. 
(4) Alleged doublets, 112. IT. Diversity of diction and 
ideas. But (1) Reasoning in a circle, 113. (2) Proofs facti- 
tious, 114. (3) Synonyms, 115. (4) Criteria conflict. (5) An 
indeterminate equation, 116. (6) Growing complexity, 117. 



CONTENTS 



Arguments insufficient, 118. Partition of the parables of the 
Prodigal Son, 119-122, and the Good Samaritan, 122-124. 
Romans Dissected ; additional incongruities, 125, 126 ; mar- 
vellous perspicacity of the critics, 126, 127 ; critical assault 
upon Cicero's orations and other classical productions, 127 
and 128, -129 note; Prologue of Faust, 130; agreement of 
critics, 130, 131 ; Partition Hypothesis a failure, but the labor 
spent upon it not altogether fruitless, 132, 133. 



Genuineness of the Laws, 134 

Critical revolution, 134 ; diversities of literary critics, two 
points of agreement, 135 ; Development Hypothesis, 136, 137 ; 
its fallacy, 138 ; dates assigned to the several codes, 139, 140 ; 
Graf, 140 ; Kuenen, Wellhausen, 141 ; works for and against, 
note 141-143 ; Supplement Hypothesis overthrown, 142, 143 ; 
Scriptural statements vindicated, 144-146 ; no discrepancy be- 
tween the codes, 147-149 ; alleged violations of the" law, 150, 
in respect to the place of sacrifice and the priesthood, 151, 
152 ; Deuteronomy, 153 ; the Priest Code, 154 ; incongruities 
of the hypothesis, 155 ; the laws of Charlemagne, 155, 156. 

VI 

The Bearing op the Divisive Criticism on the Credibil- 
ity op the Pentateuch and on Supernatural Relig- 
ion, 157 

Partition Hypotheses elaborated in the interest of unbelief, 
157 ; credibility undermined ; not a question of inerrancy, 
but of the trustworthiness of the history, 158 ; facts only 
elicited by a critical process ; incompleteness of the docu- 
ments ; w T ork of the redactors, 159, 160 ; effect upon the 
truthfulness of the Pentateuch, 161, 162 ; the real issue; un- 
friendly to revealed religion, 163 ; iu both the Old and the 
New Testament, 164 ; the religion of the Bible based on his- 
torical facts ; revelations, predictions, and miracles discred- 
ited by the authors of these hypotheses, 165, 166 ; Mosaic or 
contemporary authorship denied, 167 ; falsity of the docu- 
ments assumed, 108 ; they represent discordant traditions ; 
Scripture cannot be broken ; criticism largely subjective, 169 ; 



CONTENTS : 

errors of redactors, 170 ; no limit to partition, 171 ; deism, 
rationalism, divisive criticism ; literary attractions of the 
Bible, 172 ; the supernatural eliminated, 173 ; deism, 174 ; 
rationalistic exegesis, 174, 175 ; method of higher criticism 
most plausible and effective, 176 ; hazardous experiment of 
the so-called evangelical critics, 177 



THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF 
THE PENTATEUCH 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STEUCTUEE 

The Old Testament is the volume of God's written 
revelation prior to the advent of Christ. Its complement 
is the New Testament, which is God's written revelation 
since the advent of Christ. The former being immedi- 
ately addressed to the people of Israel was written in the 
language of that people, and hence for the most part in 
Hebrew, a few chapters in Daniel and Ezra and a verse in 
Jeremiah being in the Jewish Aramean, 1 when the lan- 
guage was in its transition state. This earlier dispensa- 
tion, which for a temporary purpose was restricted to a 
single people and a limited territory, was, however, pre- 
paratory to the dispensation of the fulness of times, in 
which God's word was to be carried everywhere and 
preached to every creature. Accordingly the New Testa- 
ment was written in Greek, which was then the language 
of the civilized world. 

The Old Testament was composed by many distinct 
writers, at many different times and in many separate 
portions, through a period of more than a thousand years 
from Moses to Malachi. It is not, however, an aggre- 

1 Jer. x. 11 ; Dan. ii. 4^vii. 28 ; Ezra iv. 7-vi. 18, vii. 12-26 are in 
Aramean. 

1 



2 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

gate of detached productions without order or method, 
as the seemingly casual circumstances connected with the 
origin of its several parts might tempt some to imagine. 
Nor, on the other hand, are the additions made from time 
to time of a uniform pattern, as though the separate value 
of each new revelation consisted merely in the fact that 
an increment was thereby made to the body of divine 
truth previously imparted. Upon the lowest view that 
can possibly be taken of this volume, if it were simply 
the record of the successive stages of the development of 
the Hebrew mind, it might be expected to possess an 
organic structure and to exhibit a gradually unfolding 
scheme, as art, philosophy, and literature among every 
people have each its characteristics and laws, which gov- 
ern its progress and determine the measure and direction 
of its growth. But rightly viewed as the word of God, 
communicated to men for his own wise and holy ends, it 
may with still greater confidence be assumed that the 
order and symmetry which characterize all the works of 
the Most High, will be visible here likewise ; that the 
divine skill and intelligence will be conspicuous in the 
method as well as in the matter of his disclosures ; and 
that these will be found to be possessed of a structural 
arrangement in which all the parts are wisely disposed, 
and stand in clearly defined mutual relations. 

The Old Testament is a product of the Spirit of God, 
wrought out through the instrumentality of many human 
agents, who were all inspired by him, directed by him, 
and adapted by him to the accomplishment of his own 
fixed end. Here is that unity in multiplicity, that single- 
ness of aim with diversity of operations, that binding to- 
gether of separate activities under one superior and con- 
trolling influence, which guides all to the accomplishment 
of a predetermined purpose, and allots to each its par- 
ticular function in reference to it, which is the very con- 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 3 

ception of a well-arranged organism. There is a divine 
reason why every part is what it is and where it is ; why 
God spake unto the fathers at precisely those sundry 
times and in just those divers portions, in which he 
actually revealed his will. And though this may not in 
every instance be ascertainable by us, yet careful and 
reverent study will disclose it not only in its general out- 
lines, but also in a multitude of its minor details ; and 
will show that the transpositions and alterations, which 
have been proposed as improvements, are dislocations 
and disfigurements, which mar and deface the well-pro- 
portioned whole. 

In looking for the evidences of an organic structure in 
the Scriptures, according to which all its parts are dis- 
posed in harmonious unity, and each part stands in a 
definite and intelligible relation to every other, as well as 
to the grand design of the whole, it will be necessary to 
group and classify the particulars, or the student will lose 
himself in the multiplicity of details, and never rise to 
any clear conception of the Avhole. Every fact, every 
institution, every person, every doctrine, every utterance 
of the Bible has its place and its function in the general 
plan. And the evidence of the correctness of any scheme 
proposed as the plan of the Scriptures will lie mainly in 
its harmonizing throughout with all these details, giving 
a rational and satisfactory account of the purpose and 
design of each and assigning to all their just place and 
relations. But if one were to occupy himself with these 
details in the first instance, he would be distracted and 
confused by their multitude, without the possibility of 
arriving thus at any clear or satisfactory result. 

The first important aid in the process of grouping or 
classification is afforded by the separate books of which 
the Scriptures are composed. These are not arbitrary or 
fortuitous divisions of the sacred text : but their form, 



4 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

dimensions, and contents have been divinely determined. 
Each represents the special task allotted to one partic- 
ular organ of the Holy Spirit, either the entire function 
assigned to him in the general plan, or, in the case where 
the same inspired penman wrote more than one book 
of different characters and belonging to different classes, 
his function in one given sphere or direction. Thus the 
books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Malachi exhibit to us that 
part in the plan of divine revelation which each of those 
distinguished servants of God was commissioned to per- 
form. The book of Psalms represents the task allotted 
to David and the other inspired writers of song in the 
instruction and edification of the people of God. The 
books of Moses may be said to have led the way in 
every branch of sacred composition, in history (Genesis), 
in legislation (Leviticus), in oratorical and prophetic 
discourse (Deuteronomy), in poetry (Ex. xv., Dt. xxxii., 
xxxiii.), and they severally set forth what he was en- 
gaged to accomplish in each of these different directions. 
The books of Scripture thus having each an individual 
character and this stamped with divine authority as an 
element of fitness for their particular place and function, 
must be regarded as organic parts of the whole. 

The next step in our inquiry is to classify and arrange 
the books themselves. Every distribution is not a true 
classification, as a mechanical division of an animal body 
is not a dissection, and every classification will not ex- 
hibit the organic structure of which we are in quest. 
The books of the Bible may be variously divided with 
respect to matters merely extraneous and contingent, 
and which stand in no relation to the true principle of 
its construction. 

Thus, for example, the current division of the Hebrew 
Bible is into three parts, the Law, the Prophets, and 
the K'thubhim or Hagiographa. This distribution rests 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 5 

upon the official standing of the writers. The writings 
of Moses, the great lawgiver and mediator of God's cove- 
nant with Israel, whose position in the theocracy was 
altogether unique, stand first. Then follow the writings 
of the prophets, that is to say, of those invested with the 
prophetical office. Some of these writings, the so-called 
former prophets — Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings — 
are historical ; the others are prophetical, viz., those de- 
nominated the latter prophets — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 
and the twelve minor prophets so called, not as though 
of inferior authority, but solely because of the brevity of 
their books. Their position in this second division of 
the canon is due not to the nature of their contents but 
to the fact that their writers were prophets in the strict 
and official sense. Last of all those books occupy the 
third place which were written by inspired men who 
were not in the technical or official sense prophets. 
Thus the writings of David and Solomon, though inspired 
as truly as those of the prophets, are assigned td* the 
third division of the canon, because their authors were 
not prophets but kings. So, too, the book of Daniel be- 
longs in this third division, because its author, though 
possessing the gift of prophecy in an eminent degree, and 
uttering prophecies of the most remarkable character, 
and hence called a prophet, Mat. xxiv. 15, in the same 
general sense as David is in Acts ii. 30, nevertheless did 
not exercise the prophetic office. He was not engaged in 
laboring with the people for their spiritual good as his 
contemporary and fellow- captive Ezekiel. He had an 
entirely different office to perform on their behalf in the 
distinguished position which he occupied at the court of 
Babylon and then of Persia. The books of Chronicles 
cover the same period of the history as 2 Samuel and 
Kings, but the assignment of the former to the third 
division, and of the latter to the second, assures us that 



6 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

Samuel and Kings were written by prophets, while the 
author of Chronicles, though writing under the guidance 
and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was not officially a 
prophet. 

As classified in our present Hebrew Bibles, which 
follow the order given in the Talmud, this principle of 
arrangement is in one instance obviously departed from ; 
the Lamentations of Jeremiah stands in the Hagiogra- 
pha, though as the production of a prophet it ought to 
be included in the second division of the canon, and 
there is good reason to believe that this was its original 
position. Two modes of enumerating the sacred books 
were in familiar use in ancient times, as appears from 
the catalogues Avhich have been preserved to us. The 
two books of Samuel were uniformly counted one : so 
the two books of Kings and the two of Chronicles : so 
also Ezra and Nehemiah : so likewise the Minor Proph- 
ets were counted- one book. Then, according to one 
mode of enumeration, Buth was attached to Judges as 
forming together one book, and Lamentations was re- 
garded as a part of the book of Jeremiah : thus the en- 
tire number of the books of the Old Testament was 
twenty -two. In the other mode Ruth and Lamentations 
were reckoned separate books, and the total was twenty- 
four. Now the earliest enumerations that we have from 
Jewish or Christian sources are by Josephus 1 and Ori- 
gen, who both give the number as twenty-two : and as 
this is the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, 
while twenty-four is the number in the Greek alphabet, 
the former may naturally be supposed to have been 
adopted by the Jews in the first instance. From this it 
would appear that Lamentations was originally annexed 

1 Josephus adopts a classification of his own suited to his immediate 
purpose, but doubtless preserves the total number current among his 
countrymen. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 7 

to the book of Jeremiah and of course placed in the 
same division of the canon. Subsequently, for liturgical 
or other purposes, Ruth and Lamentations were re- 
moved to the third division of the canon and included 
among the five small books now classed together as Me- 
gilloth or Rolls, which follow immediately after Psalms, 
Proverbs, and Job. 

There are two methods by which we can proceed in 
investigating the organic structure of the Old Testament. 
We must take our departure either from the beginning 
or the end. These are the two points from which all the 
lines of progress diverge, or in which they meet in every 
development or growth. All that which properly be- 
longs to it throughout its entire course is unfolded from 
the one and is gathered up in the other. Thus the seed 
may be taken, in which the whole plant is already in- 
volved in its undeveloped state, and its growth may be 
traced from this its initial point by observing how roots, 
and stem, and leaves, and flowers, and fruit proceed 
from it by regular progression. Or the process may be re- 
versed and. the whole be surveyed from its consummation. 
The plant is for the sake of the fruit ; every part has its 
special function to perform toward its production, and 
the organic structure is understood when the office of 
each particular portion in relation to the end of the 
whole becomes known. 

In making trial of the first of the methods just sug- 
gested, the Old Testament may be contemplated under 
its most obvious aspect of a course of training to which 
Israel was subjected for a series of ages. So regarding 
it there will be little difficulty in fixing upon the law of 
Moses as the starting-point of this grand development. 
God chose Israel from among the nations of the earth to 
be his own peculiar people, to train them up for himself 
by immediate communications of his will, and by manifes- 



8 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

tations of his presence and power in the midst of them. 
And as the first step in this process, first not only in the 
order of time but of rational arrangement, and the foun- 
dation of the whole, he entered into special and formal 
covenant with them at Sinai, and gave them a divine 
constitution and laws containing the undeveloped seeds 
and germs of all that he designed to accomplish in them 
and for them. The first division of the Old Testament 
consequently is the Pentateuch, which contains this law 
with its historical introduction. 

The next step was to engage the people in the observ- 
ance of the law thus given to them. The constitution 
which they had received was set in operation and al- 
lowed to work out its legitimate fruits among them and 
upon them. The law of God thus shaped the history of 
Israel : while the history added confirmation and enlarge- 
ment to the law by the experience which it afforded of 
its workings and of the providential sanctions which at- 
tended it and by the modifications which were from time 
to time introduced as occasion demanded. The histori- 
cal books thus constitute the second division of the Old 
Testament, whose office it is to record the providential 
application and expansion of the law. 

A third step in this divine training was to have the 
law as originally given and as providentially expanded, 
wrought not only into the outward practice of the people 
or their national life, as shown in the historical books, 
but into their inward individual life and their intellect- 
ual convictions. This is the function of the poetical 
books, which are occupied with devout meditations or 
earnest reflections upon the law of God, his works and 
his providence, and the reproduction of the law in the 
heart and life. These form accordingly the third divis- 
ion of the Old Testament. 

The law has thus been set to work upon the national 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 9 

life of the people of Israel in the course of their history, 
and is in addition coming to be wrought more and more 
into their individual life and experience by devout medi- 
tation and careful reflection. But that this outward and 
inward development, though conducted in the one case 
under immediate divine superintendence, and in the 
other under the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, might 
not fail of its appointed end, there was need that this end 
should be held up to view and that the minds of the peo- 
ple should be constantly directed forward to it. With 
this view the prophets were raised up to reiterate, un- 
fold, and apply the law in its true spiritual meaning, to 
correct abuses and misapprehensions, to recall a trans- 
gressing people to fidelity to their covenant God, and to 
expand to the full dimensions of the glorious future the 
germs and seeds of a better era which their covenant 
relation to Jehovah contained. They furnish thus what 
may be called an objective expansion of the law, and 
their writings form the fourth and last division of the 
Old Testament. 

If, then, the structure of the Old Testament has been 
read aright, as estimated from the point of its beginning 
and its gradual development from that onward, it con- 
sists of four parts, 1 viz. : 

1. The Pentateuch or law of Moses, the basis of the 
whole. 

2. Its providential expansion and application to the 
national life in the historical books. 

3. Its subjective expansion and appropriation to in- 
dividual life in the poetical books. 

4. Its objective expansion and enforcement in the 
prophetical books. 

The other mode above suggested of investigating the 

1 This is substantially the same as Oehler's division first proposed in 
his Prolegomena zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1845, pp. 87-91. 



10 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

structure of the Old Testament requires us to survey it 
from its end, which is Christ, for whose coming and sal- 
vation it is a preparation. This brings everything into 
review under a somewhat different aspect. It will yield 
substantially the same division that has already been ar- 
rived at by the contrary process, and thus lends it addi- 
tional confirmation, since it serves to show that this is 
not a fanciful or arbitrary partition but one grounded in 
the nature of the sacred volume. At the same time it is 
attended with three striking and important advantages. 

1. The historical, poetical, and prophetical books, 
which have hitherto been considered as separate lines of 
development, springing it is true from a common root, 
yet pursuing each its own independent course, are by this 
second method exhibited in that close relationship and 
interdependence which really subsists between them, and 
in their convergence to one common centre and end. 

2. It makes Christ the prominent figure, and adjusts 
every part of the Old Testament in its true relation to 
him. He thus becomes in the classification and struct- 
ural arrangement, what he is in actual fact, the end of 
the whole, the- controlling, forming principle of all, so that 
the meaning of every part is to be estimated from its re- 
lation to him and is only then apprehended as it should 
be when that relation becomes known. 

3. This will give unity to the study of the entire Script- 
ures. Everything in the Old Testament tends to Christ 
and is to be estimated from him. Everything in the 
New Testament unfolds from Christ and is likewise to be 
estimated from him. In fact this method pursued in other 
fields will give unity and consistency to all knowledge 
by making Christ the sum and centre of the whole, of 
whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things. 

In the first method the Old Testament was regarded 
simply as a divine scheme of training. It must now be 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 11 

regarded as a scheme of training directed to one definite 
end, the coming of Christ. 

It is to be noted that the Old Testament, though pre- 
paratory for Christ and predictive of him everywhere, is 
not predictive of him in the same manner nor in equal 
measure throughout. Types and prophecies are accumu- 
lated at particular epochs in great numbers and of a strik- 
ing character. And then, as if in order that these lessons 
might be fully learned before the attention was diverted 
by the impartation of others, an interval is allowed to 
elapse in which predictions, whether implicit or explicit, 
are comparatively few and unimportant. Then another 
brilliant epoch follows succeeded by a fresh decline ; pe- 
riods they may be called of activity and of repose, of in- 
struction on the part of God followed by periods of com- 
prehension and appropriation on the part of the people. 

These periods of marked predictive character are never 
mere repetitions of those which preceded them. Each 
has its own distinctive nature and quality. It emphasizes 
particular aspects and gives prominence to certain char- 
acteristics of the coming Redeemer and the ultimate 
salvation ; but others are necessarily neglected altogether 
or left in comparative obscurity, and if these are to be 
brought distinctly to view, a new period is necessary to 
represent them. Thus one period serves as the comple- 
ment of another, and all must be combined in order 
to gain a complete notion of the preparation for Christ 
effected by the Old Testament, or of that exhibition of 
Messiah and his work which it was deemed requisite to 
make prior to his appearing. 

It is further to be observed that Christ and the coming 
salvation are predicted negatively as well as positively. 
While the good things of the present point forward to 
the higher good in anticipation, evils endured or foretold, 
and imperfections in existing forms of good, suggest the 



12 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

blissful future by way of contrast; tliey awaken to a 
sense of wants, deficiencies, and needs which points for- 
ward to a time when they shall be supplied. The cove- 
nant relation of the people to God creates an ideal which 
though far from being realized as yet must some time 
find a complete realization. The almighty and all holy 
God who has made them his people will yet make them 
to be in character and destiny what the people of Jeho- 
vah ought to be. Now since each predictive period ex- 
presses just the resultant of the particular types and 
prophecies embraced within it, its character is determined 
by the predominant character of these types and proph- 
ecies. If these are predominantly of a negative descrip- 
tion, the period viewed as a whole is negatively predic- 
tive. If they are prevailingly positive, they constitute a 
prevailingly positive period. 

If now the sacred history be considered from the call 
of Abraham to the close of the Old Testament, it will be 
perceived that it spontaneously divides itself into a se- 
ries of periods alternately negative and positive. There 
is first a period in which a want is developed in the ex- 
perience of those whom God is thus training, and is 
brought distinctly to their consciousness. Then follows 
a period devoted to its supply. Then comes a new want 
and a fresh supply, and so on. 

The patriarchal, for example, is a negative period. Its 
characteristic is its wants, its patient, longing expecta- 
tion of a numerous seed and the possession of the land 
of Canaan, which are actualty supplied in the time of 
Moses and Joshua, which is therefore the corresponding 
positive period. 

The period of the Judges, again, possesses a negative 
character. The bonds which knit the nation together 
were too feeble and too easily dissolved. This was not 
the fault of their divine constitution. Had the people 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 13 

been faithful to their covenant God, their invisible but 
almighty sovereign and protector, their union would 
have been perfect, and as against all foreign foes they 
would have been invincible. But when the generation 
which had beheld the mighty works wrought under the 
leadership of Moses and Joshua had passed away, the in- 
visible lost its hold upon a carnally minded people, and 
" every man did that which was right in his own eyes." 
They relapsed from the worship of God and obedience to 
his law, and were in turn forsaken by him. Hence their 
weakness, their civil dissensions tending to anarchy and 
their repeated subjugation by surrounding enemies con- 
vincing them of the need of a stronger union under a 
visible head, a king to go before them. This was sup- 
plied in David and Solomon, who mark the correspond- 
ing positive period. 

Then follows another negative period embracing the 
schism, the decline of the divided kingdoms, their over- 
throw and the captivity, with its corresponding positive, 
the restoration. 

If the marked and prominent features of the history 
now recited be regarded, and if each negative be com- 
bined with the positive which forms its appropriate com- 
plement, there will result three great predictive or pre- 
paratory periods, viz. : 

1. From the call of Abraham to the death of Joshua. 

2. To the death of Solomon. 

3. To the close of the Old Testament. 

All that precedes the call of Abraham is purely pre- 
liminary to it, and is to be classed with the first period 
as its introduction or explanatory antecedent. 

If these divisions of the history be transferred to the 
Old Testament, whose structure is the subject of inquiry, 
it will be resolved into the following portions, viz. : 

1. The Pentateuch and Joshua. 



14 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

2. The recorded history as far as the death of Solo- 
mon, and the sacred writings belonging to this period. 
These are, principally, the Psalms of David and the Prov- 
erbs of Solomon, the great exemplars of devotional lyr- 
ics and of aphoristic or sententious verse, which gave 
tone and character to all the subsequent poetry of the 
Bible. The latter may accordingly be properly grouped 
with them as their legitimate expansion or appropriate 
complement. These echoes continue to be heard in the 
following period of the history, but as the keynote was 
struck in this, all the poetical books may be classed to- 
gether here as in a sense the product of this period. 

3. The rest of the historical books of the Old Testa- 
ment, together with the prophetical books. 

This triple division, though based on an entirely dis- 
tinct principle and reached by a totally different route, is 
yet closely allied to the quadruple division previously 
made, with only divergence enough to show that the 
partition is not mechanical but organic, and hence no 
absolute severance is possible. The historical books are 
here partitioned relatively to the other classes of books, 
exhibiting a symmetrical division of three periods of di- 
vinely guided history, and at the close of each an imme- 
diate divine revelation, for which the history furnishes 
the preliminary training, and, in a measure, the theme. 
The history recorded by Moses and consummated by 
Joshua has as its complement the law given at Sinai and 
in the wilderness. The further history to the death of 
Solomon formed a preparation for the poetical books. 
The subsequent history prepares the way for the proph- 
ets, who are in like manner gathered about its concluding 
stages. 

There is besides just difference enough between the 
two modes of division to reveal the unity of the whole 
Old Testament, and that books separated under one as- 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 15 

pect are jet united under another. Thus Joshua, accord- 
ing to one method of division and one mode of conceiving 
of it, continues and completes the history of the Penta- 
teuch ; the other method sees in it the opening of a new 
development. There is a sense, therefore, in which it 
is entirely legitimate to combine the Pentateuch and 
Joshua as together forming a Hexateuch. The promises 
made to the patriarchs, the exodus from Egypt, and the 
march through the wilderness contemplate the settlement 
in Canaan recorded by Joshua, and are incomj)lete with- 
out it. And yet in the sense in which it is currently 
employed by modern critics, as though the Pentateuch 
and the book of Joshua constituted one continuous liter- 
ary production, the term Hexateuch is a misnomer. They 
are distinct works by distinct writers ; and the func- 
tion of Joshua was qiute distinct from that of Moses. 
Joshua, as is expressly noted at every step of his course, 
simply did the bidding of Moses. The book of the law 
was complete, and was placed in his hands at the outset 
as the guide of his official life. The peiiod of legislation 
ended with the death of Moses ; obedience to the law 
already given was the requirement for the time that fol- 
lowed. Again the reign of Solomon may be viewed un- 
der a double aspect. It is the sequel to that of David, 
carrying the kingdom of Israel to a still higher pitch of 
prosperity and renown ; and yet in Kings it is put at the 
opening of a new book, since it may likewise be viewed 
under another aspect as containing the seeds of the dis- 
solution that followed. 

As to the general relation of these three divisions of 
the Old Testament there may be observed : 

1. A correspondence between the first and the follow- 
ing divisions. The Pentateuch and Joshua fulfil their 
course successively in two distinct though related 
spheres. They contain, first, a record of individual 



16 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

experience arid individual training in the lives of the 
patriarchs ; and secondly, the national experience and 
training of Israel under Moses and Joshua. These 
spheres repeat themselves, the former in the second 
grand division of the Old Testament, the latter in the 
third. The histories of the second division are pre- 
dominantly the record of individual experience, and 
its poetry is individual in its character. Judges and 
Samuel are simply a series of historical biographies; 
Judges, of the distinguished men raised up from time to 
time to deliver the people out of the hands of their op- 
pressors ; Samuel, of the three leading characters by 
whom the affairs of the people were shaped in that im- 
portant period of transition, Samuel, Saul, and David. 
Ruth is a biographical sketch from private life. The 
poetical books not only unfold the divinely guided re- 
flections of individual minds or the inward struggles of 
individual souls, but their lessons, whether devotional 
or Messianic, are chiefly based on the personal experi- 
ence of David and Solomon, or of other men of God. 

The third division of the Old Testament, on the other 
hand, resembles the closing portion of the first in being 
national. Its histories — Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and 
Nehemiah — concern the nation at large, and the same may 
be said to a certain extent even of Esther. The commu- 
nications of the prophets now given are God's messages 
to the people, and their form and character are condi- 
tioned by the state and prospects of the nation. 

2. The number of organs employed in their communi- 
cation increases with each successive division. In the 
first there are but two inspired writers, Moses and the 
author of the book of Joshua, whether Joshua himself or 
another. In the second the historians were distinct from 
the poets, the latter consisting of David, Solomon, and 
other sacred singers, together with the author of the 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS STRUCTURE 17 

book of Job. In the third we find the greatest number 
of inspired writers, together with the most elaborate ar- 
ticulation and hence an advance in organic structure. 

3. There is a progress in the style of instruction 
adopted in each successive division. The first is purely 
typical. The few prophecies which are scattered 
through it are lost in the general mass. The second di- 
vision is of a mixed character, but types predominate. 
We here meet not a simple record of typical facts and 
institutions without remark or explanation, as in the 
Pentateuch and Joshua ; but in the poetical books types 
are singled out and dwelt upon, and made the basis of 
predictions respecting Christ. The third division is also 
of a mixed character, but prophecies so predominate that 
the types are almost lost sight of in the comparison. 

4. These divisions severally render prominent the 
three great theocratic offices which were combined in the 
Redeemer. The first by its law, the central institution 
of which is sacrifice, and which impresses a sacerdotal 
organization upon the people, points to Jesus as priest. 
The second, which revolves about the kingdom, is prog- 
nostic of Jesus as king, although the erection of Solo- 
mon's temple and the new stability and splendor given 
to the ritual show that the priesthood is not forgotten. 
In the third, the prophets rise to prominence, and the 
people themselves, dispersed among the nations to be the 
teachers of the world, take on a prophetic character typ- 
ifying Jesus as a prophet. While nevertheless the re- 
building of the temple by Zerubbabel, and the prophetic 
description of its ideal reconstruction by Ezekiel, point 
still to his priesthood, and the monarchs of Babylon and 
Persia, aspiring to universal empire, dimly foreshadow 
his kingdom. 



II 

THE PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH 

The books of Moses are in the Scriptures called " the 
law," Josh. i. 7 ; "the law of Moses," 1 Kin. ii. 3 ; "the 
book of the law," Josh. viii. 34 ; " the book of the law 
of Moses, Josh. viii. 31 ; " the book of the law of God," 
Josh. xxiv. 26, or " of the Loed," 2 Chron. xvii. 9, on ac- 
count of their predominantly legislative character. They 
are collectively called the Pentateuch, from nrevre,five, and 
reO^o?, originally signifying an implement, but used by 
the Alexandrian critics in the sense of a hook, hence a 
work consisting of five books. This division into five 
books is spoken of by Josephus and Philo, and in all 
probability is at least as old as the Septuagint version. 
Its introduction has by some (Leusden, Havernick, Len- 
gerke) been attributed to the Greek translators. Others 
regard it as of earlier date (Michaelis), and perhaps as 
old as the law itself (Bertholdt, Keil), for the reasons : 

1. That this is a natural division determined by the 
plan of the work. Genesis, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy 
are each complete in itself ; and this being so, the five- 
fold division follows as a matter of course. 

2. The division of the Psalms into five books, as found 
in the Hebrew Bible, is probably patterned after the 
Pentateuch, and is most likely as old as the constitution 
of the canon. 

The names of these five books are in the Hebrew Bible 
taken from the first words of each. Those current among 
ourselves, and adopted in most versions of the Old Tes- 
tament, are taken from the old Greek translators. 



PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH 19 

The Pentateuch has one theme, which is consistently 
pursued from first to last, viz., the theocracy in Israel, 
or the establishment of Israel to be the people of God. 
It consists of two parts, viz. : 

1. Historical, Gen. i. — Ex. xix., tracing the successive 
steps by which Israel was brought into being as a na- 
tion chosen to be the peculiar people of God. 

2. Legal, recording the divine constitution granted to 
them, by which they were formally organized as God's 
people and brought into special relation to him. The 
law begins with the ten commandments, uttered by God's 
own voice from the smoking summit of Sinai, in Ex. xx., 
and extends to the close of Deuteronomy. The scraps of 
history which are found in this second main division are 
not only insignificant in bulk compared with the legisla- 
tion which it contains, but they are subordinated to it as 
detailing the circumstances or occasions on which the 
laws were given, and likewise allied with it as constitut- 
ing part of the training by which Israel was schooled into 
their proper relation to God. Of these two main sections 
of the Pentateuch the first, or historical portion, is not 
only precedent to, but preparatory for, the second or legal 
portion ; the production and segregation of the people of 
Israel being effected with the direct view of their being 
organized as the people of God. 

It will be plain from a general survey of these two 
main sections, into which the Pentateuch is divided, that 
everything in it bears directly upon its theme as already 
stated ; and the more minute and detailed the examina- 
tion of its contents, the more evident this will become. 
The first of these two great sections, or the historical 
portion, is clearly subdivided by the call of Abraham. It 
was at that point that the production and segregation 
of the covenant people, strictly speaking, commenced. 
From the creation of the world to the call of Abraham, 



20 TPIE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

which is embraced in the first eleven chapters of Gene- 
sis, the history is purely preliminary. It is directed to 
the negative end of demonstrating the necessity of such 
a segregation. From the call of Abraham to the law 
given at Mount Sinai, that is to say, from Gen. xii. to 
Ex. xix., the history is directed to the positive end of 
the production and segregation of the covenant people. 

The preliminary portion of the history is once more 
divided by the flood ; the first five chapters of Genesis 
being occupied with the antediluvian period and the next 
six with an account of the deluge and the postdiluvian 
period. Each of these preliminary periods is marked 
by the formation of a universal covenant between God 
and the two successive progenitors and heads of the hu- 
man race, Adam and Noah, which stand in marked con- 
trast with the particular or limited covenant made with 
Abraham, the progenitor of the chosen race, at the begin- 
ning of the following or patriarchal period. The failure 
of both those primeval covenants to preserve religion 
among men, and to guard the race from degeneracy and 
open apostasy, established the necessity of a new ex- 
pedient, the segregation of a chosen race, among whom 
religion might be fostered in seclusion from other na- 
tions, until it could gain strength enough to contend 
with evil on the arena of the world and overcome it, in- 
stead of being overcome by it. The covenant with Adam 
was broken by his fall, and the race became more and 
more corrupt from age to age, until the Lord determined 
to put a sudden end to its enormous wickedness, and de- 
stroyed the world by the flood. Noah, who was alone 
spared with his household, became the head of a new 
race with whom God entered into covenant afresh ; but 
the impious attempt at Babel is suggestive of the ungod- 
liness and corruption which once more overspread the 
earth, and it became apparent, if the true service of God 



PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH 21 

was to be maintained in the world, it must be by initiat- 
ing a new process. Hence the call of Abraham to be the 
father of a new people, which should be kept separate 
from other nations and be the peculiar people of the 
Lord. 

These two preliminary periods furnish thus the justi- 
fication of the theocracy in Israel by demonstrating the 
insufficiency of preceding methods, and the consequent 
necessity of selecting a special people to be the Lord's 
people. But besides this negative purpose, which the 
writer had in view in recording this primeval portion of 
the history, he had also the positive design of paving the 
way for the account to be subsequently given of the 
chosen people, by exhibiting and inculcating certain 
ideas, which are involved in the notion of a covenant 
people, and of describing certain preliminary steps al- 
ready taken in the direction of selecting such a people. 

The idea of the people of God involves, when con- 
templated under its negative aspect, (1) segregation from 
the rest of mankind ; and this segregation is not purely 
formal and local, but is represented (2) both in their in- 
ward character, suggesting the contrast of holiness to sin, 
and (3) in their outward destiny, suggesting the contrast 
of salvation to perdition. The same idea of the people 
of God contemplated under its positive aspect involves 
(4) direct relation to God or covenant with him, the ob- 
servance of his laws and of the institutions which he im- 
posed or established. Something is effected in relation 
to each of these four particulars in each of these prelimi- 
nary periods, and thus much, at least, accomplished in the 
direction of the theocracy which was afterward to be in- 
stituted. 

Genesis begins with a narrative of the creation, because 
in this the sacred history has its root. And this not only 
because an account of the formation of the world might 



22 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OP THE PENTATEUCH 

fitly precede an account of what was transacted in it, 
but chiefly because the sacred history is essentially a his- 
tory of redemption, and this being a process of recovery, 
a scheme initiated for the purpose of restoring man and 
the world to their original condition, necessarily presup- 
poses a knowledge of what that original condition was. 
Hence the regular and emphatic repetition, after each 
work was performed, in Gen. i., of the statement, " and 
God saw that it was good ; " and at the close of all, " God 
saw everything that he had made ; and behold it was 
very good." Hence, too, the declaration made and re- 
peated at the creation of man, that he was made in God's 
image. The idea of primitive holiness thus set forth is 
further illustrated, by contrast, in the tree of the knowl- 
edge of good and evil, which stood in the midst of the gar- 
den, and was made the test of obedience, and especially in 
man's transgression and disobedience which rendered 
redemption necessary. The contrast of salvation and 
perdition is suggested by paradise and the tree of life on 
the one hand, and by the curse pronounced upon man 
and his expulsion from Eden in consequence of the fall 
upon the other ; by Cain's being driven out from the 
presence of the Lord, and by Enoch, who walked with 
God and was not, for God took him. The idea of seg- 
regation is suggested by the promise respecting the seed 
of the woman and the seed of the serpent, by which the 
family of man is divided into two opposite and hostile 
classes, who maintain a perpetual strife, until the serpent 
and his seed are finally crushed ; a strife which culmi- 
nates in the personal conflict between Christ and Satan, 
and the victory of the former, in which all his people 
share. These hostile parties find their first representa- 
tives in the family of Adam himself — in Cain, who was of 
the evil one, and his righteous brother, Abel ; and after 
Abel's murder Seth was raised up in his stead. These 






PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH 23 

are j>erpetuated in their descendants, those of Seth being 
called the sons of God, those of Cain the sons and 
daughters of men. In conformity with the plan, which 
the writer steadfastly pursues throughout, of tracing the 
divergent lines of descent before dismissing them from 
further consideration in the history, and proceeding with 
the account of the chosen line itself, he first gives an ac- 
count of the descendants of Cain, whose growing degen- 
eracy is exhibited in Lamech, of the seventh generation 
(Gen. iv. 17-24), before narrating the' birth of Seth (Gen. 
iv. 25, 26) and tracing the line of the pious race through 
him to Noah, ch. v. By this excision of the apostate line 
of Cain, that narrowing process is begun, which was finally 
to issue in the limitation to Abraham and his seed. And 
in the fourth and last place, the divine institutions now 
established as germs of the future law, were the weekly 
Sabbath (Gen. ii. 3), and the rite of sacrifice (Gen. iv. 3, 4). 
In the next period the same rites were perpetuated, 
with a more specific mention of the distinction of clean 
and unclean animals (Gen. vii. 8), and the prohibition 
of eating blood (Gen. ix. 4), which were already involved 
in the institution of sacrifice, and the annexing of the 
penalty of death to the crime of murder (Gen. ix. 6) ; and 
the same ideas received a new sanction and enforcement. 
The character of those who belong to God is repre- 
sented in righteous Noah, as contrasted with the un- 
godly world ; their destiny, in the salvation of the former 
aud the perdition of the latter. Segregation is carried 
one term farther by the promise belonging to this period, 
which declares that while Japheth shall be enlarged and 
Canaan made a servant, God shall dwell in the tents 
of Shem. And here, according to his usual method, al- 
ready adverted to, the writer first presents a view of the 
descendants of all Noah's sons, which were dispersed 
over the face of the earth (Gen. x.), prior to tracing the 



24 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

chosen line in the seed of Shein, to Terah, the father of 
Abraham (Gen. xi. 10-26). He thus exhibits the rela- 
tionship of the chosen race to the rest of mankind, while 
singling them out and sundering them from it. 

Everything in these opening chapters thus bears di- 
rectly on his grand theme, to which he at once proceeds 
by stating the call of Abraham (Gen. xii.), and going on 
to trace those providential events which issued in the 
production of a great nation descended from him. 

The preparation *of the people of Israel, who were to 
be made the covenant people of God, is traced in two 
successive stages : first, the family, in the remainder of 
the book of Genesis (Gen. ch. xii.-L), secondly, the nation 
(Ex. i.-xix.). 

The first of these sections embraces the histories of 
the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God made 
choice of Abraham to be the father of his own peculiar 
people, and covenanted with him as well as with Isaac 
and Jacob severally to be their God, promising to them — 
(1) a numerous seed, (2) the possession of the land of 
Canaan, and (3) that a blessing should come through 
them upon all mankind. During this period the work 
of segregation and elimination previously begun was car- 
ried steadily forward to its final term. The line had al- 
ready been narrowed down to the family of Terah in the 
preceding chapter. Abraham is now called to leave his 
father's house (Gen. xii.), his nephew Lot accompanying 
him, who is soon, however, separated from him (ch. xiii.), 
and his descendants traced (xix. 37, 38). Then in Abra- 
ham's own family Ishmael is sent away from his house 
(ch. xxi.), and the divergent lines of descent from Keturah 
and from Ishmael are traced (ch. xxv.), before proceeding 
with the direct line through Isaac (xxv. 19). Then in 
Isaac's family the divergent line of Esau is traced (ch. 
xxxvi.), before proceeding with the direct line of Jacob 



PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH 25 

(xxxvii. 2), the father of the twelve tribes, after which no 
further elimination is necessary. 

The history of this sacred family and God's gracious 
leadings in Canaan are first detailed, and then the provi- 
dential steps are recorded by which they were taken down 
into Egypt, where they were to be unfolded to a great na- 
tion. One important stage of preparation for the theocracy 
in Israel is now finished : the family period is at an end, 
the national period is about to begin. Genesis here ac- 
cordingly breaks off with the death of Jacob and of Joseph. 

Exodus opens with a succinct statement of the im- 
mense and rapid multiplication of the children of Israel, 
effecting the transition from a family to a nation (Ex. i. 
1-7), and then proceeds at once to detail the preparations 
for the exodus (i. 8-ch. xiii.), and the exodus itself (ch. 
xiv.-xix.). There is first described the negative prepara- 
tion in the hard bondage imposed on the people by the 
king of Egypt, making them sigh for deliverance (i. 8-22). 
The positive preparation follows, first of an instrument 
to lead the people out of Egypt in the person of Moses 
(ch. ii.-vi.) ; second, the breaking their bonds and setting 
them free by the plagues sent on Egypt (ch. vii.-xiii). 
The way being thus prepared, the people are led out of 
Egypt, attended by marvellous displays of God's power 
and grace, which conducted them through the Eed Sea 
and attended them on their march to Sinai (ch. xiv.-xix.). 

Israel is now ready to be organized as the people of 
God. The history is accordingly succeeded by the 
legislation of the Pentateuch. This legislation consists 
of three parts, corresponding to three periods of very un- 
equal length into which the abode in the wilderness may 
be divided, and three distinct localities severally oc- 
cupied by the people in these periods respectively. 

1. The legislation at Mount Sinai during the year that 
they encamped there. 



26 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

2. That given in the period of wandering in the wil- 
derness of Paran, which occupied the greater part of the 
forty years. 

3. That given to Israel in the plains of Moab, on the 
east of Jordan, when they had almost reached the prom- 
ised land. 

At Sinai God first proclaims the law of the ten com- 
mandments (Ex. xx.), and then gives a series of ordi- 
nances (ch. xxi.-xxiii.) as the basis of his covenant with 
Israel, which is then formally ratified (ch. xxiv.). The 
way is thus prepared for God to take up his abode in 
Israel. Accordingly directions are at once given for the 
preparation of the tabernacle as God's dwelling-place, 
with its furniture, and for the appointment of priests to 
serve in it, with a description of the vestments which 
they should wear, and the rites by which they should be 
consecrated (ch. xxv.-xxxi.). The execution of these 
directions was postponed in consequence of the breach 
of the covenant by the sin of the golden calf and the re- 
newal of the covenant which this had rendered necessary 
(ch. xxxii.-xxxiv.). And then Exodus is brought to a 
termination by the account of the actual construction and 
setting up of the tabernacle and God's taking up his 
abode in it (ch. xxxv.-xl.). 

The Lord having thus formally entered into covenant 
with Israel, and fixed his residence in the midst of them, 
next gives them his laws. These are mainly contained 
in the book of Leviticus. There is first the law respect- 
ing the various kinds of sacrifices to be offered at the 
tabernacle now erected (Lev. i.-vii.), then the consecra- 
tion of Aaron and his sons by whom they were to be 
offered, together with the criminal conduct and death of 
two of his sons, Naclab and Abihu (ch. viii.-x.) ; then the 
law respecting clean and unclean meats and various kinds 
of purifications (ch. xi.-xv.), and the series is wound up 



PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH 27 

by the services of the day of atonement, effecting the 
highest expiation known to the Mosaic ritual (ch. xvi.). 
These are followed by ordinances of a more miscellane- 
ous character relating to the people (ch. xvii.-xx.), and 
the priests (ch. xxi., xxii.), the various festivals (ch. 
xxiii.), the sabbatical year and year of jubilee (ch. xxv.) ; 
and the whole is concluded by the blessing pronounced 
on obedience and the curse which would attend upon 
transgression (ch. xxvi.), with which the book is brought 
to a formal close (xxvi. 46). A supplementary chapter 
(xxvii.) is added at the end respecting vows. 

Numbers begins with the arrangements of the camp and 
preparations for departure from Sinai (Num. i.-x.). The 
people are numbered (ch. i.), the order of encampment 
and march settled (ch. ii.), and duties assigned to the sev- 
eral families of the Levites in transporting the tabernacle 
(ch. iii., iv.). Then, after some special ceremonial regu- 
lations (ch. v., vi.), follow the offerings at the dedication 
of the tabernacle, including oxen and wagons for its 
transportation (ch. vii.) ; the Levites are consecrated for 
their appointed work (ch. viii.), and as the final act be- 
fore removal the passover was celebrated (ch. ix.), and 
signal trumpets prepared (ch. x.). Then comes the actual 
march from Sinai, with the occurrences upon the journey 
to Kadesh, on the southern border of the land, where 
they are condemned to wander forty years in the wilder- 
ness on account of the rebellious refusal to enter Ca- 
naan (ch. xi.-xiv.). Some incidents belonging to the 
period of the wandering and laws then given are re- 
corded (ch. xv.-xix.). The assembling of the people 
again at Kadesh in the first month of the fortieth year, 
the sin of Moses and Aaron, which excluded them from 
the promised land, and the march to the plains of Moab, 
opposite Jericho, with the transactions there until the 
eleventh month of that year, including the conquest of 



28 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

the territory east of tlie Jordan occupy the remainder of 
the book (ch. xx.-xxxvi.). 

Deuteronomy contains the last addresses of Moses to 
the people in the plains of Moab, delivered in the eleventh 
month of the fortieth year of Israel's wanderings, v in 
which he endeavors to engage them to the faithful ob- 
servance of the law now given. The first of these ad- 
dresses (Deut. i.-iv. 40) reviews some of the leading events 
of the march through the wilderness as arguments for a 
steadfast adherence to the Lord's service. Then after se- 
lecting three cities of refuge on the east side of the Jor- 
dan (iv. 41-43), he proceeds in his second address with a 
declaration of the la-^v, first in general terms, reciting the 
ten commandments with earnest admonitions of fidelity 
to the Lord (ch. v.-xi*), then entering more into detail in 
the inculcation of the various ordinances and enactments 
(ch. xii.-xxvi.). This law of Deuteronomy thus set before 
the people for their guidance is properly denominated 
the people's code as distinguished from the ritual law in 
Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, which is denominated 
the priests' code, being intende'd particularly for the 
guidance of the priests in all matters connected with the 
ceremonial. The latter develops in detail under symbolic 
forms the privileges and duties springing out of the cove- 
nant relation of the people to Jehovah in their access to 
him and the services of his worship. The former is a 
development of the covenant code (Ex. xx.-xxiii.), with 
such modifications as were suggested by the experience 
of the last forty years, and especially by their approach- 
ing entrance into the land of Canaan. His third address 
sets solemnly before the people in two sections (ch. 
xxvii., xxviii., and ch. xxix.,xxx.), the blessing consequent 
upon obedience and the curse that will certainly follow 
transgression. 

Provision is then made both for the publication and 



PLAN AND CONTENTS OF THE PENTATEUCH 29 

safe-keeping of the law, by delivering it to the custody of 
the priests, who are directed to publish it in the audience 
of the people every seven years, and to keep it safely in 
the side of the ark (ch. xxxi.) ; next follow Moses's ad- 
monitory song (ch. xxxii.), his last blessing to the tribes 
(ch. xxxiii.), and his death (ch. xxxi v.). 

The Pentateuch accordingly has, as appears from this 
brief survey, one theme from first to last to which all 
that it contains relates. This is throughout treated 
upon one definite plan, which is steadfastly adhered to. 
And it contains a continuous, unbroken history from the 
creation to the death of Moses, without any chasms or 
interruptions. The only chasms which have been al- 
leged are merely apparent, not real, and grow out of the 
nature of the theme and the rigor with which it is 
adhered to. It has been said that while the lives of the 
patriarchs are given in minute detail a large portion of 
the four hundred and thirty years during which the chil- 
dren of Israel dwelt in Egypt is passed over in silence ; 
and that of a large part of the forty years' wandering in 
the wilderness nothing is recorded. But the fact is, that 
these offered little that fell within the plan of the writer. 
The long residence in Egypt contributed nothing to the 
establishment of the theocracy in Israel, but the develop- 
ment of the chosen seed from a family to a nation. This 
is stated in a few verses, and it is all that it was neces- 
sary to record. So with the period of judicial abandon- 
ment in the wilderness : it was not the purpose of the 
writer to relate everything that happened, but only what 
contributed to the establishment of God's kingdom in 
Israel; and the chief fact of importance was the dying- 
out of the old generation and the growing up of a new 
one in their stead. 

The unity of theme and unity of plan now exhibited 
creates a presumption that these books are, as they have 



30 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

been traditionally believed to be, the product of a single 
writer; and the presumption thus afforded must stand 
unless satisfactory proof can be brought to the contrary. 

SCHEME OF THE PENTATEUCH. 



History, 
Gen. i.- 
Ex. xix. 



Preliminary, \ Antediluvian, Gen. i.- 
Gen. i.-xi. | Noachic, Gen. vi.-xi. 



Preparatory, 
Gen. xii- 
Ex. xix. 



The family, Gen. xii.-l. 
(Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.) 



The nation, 
Ex. i.-xix. 



Transition from family, Ex. i. 1-7. 

f Negative. 
Preparation for fe^ 011 ' L S ~ 22 ' 
the exodus, i. instrument, Mo . 
b-xm ' ses, ii.-vi. 

[ The plagues, vii.-xiu. 

Exodus and march to Sinai, xiv.-xix. 



Legislation Is- 
rael in wilder- 
ness, Ex. xx- 
Deut. xxxiv. 



In Paran, Num. x. 
11-xxi. 



f From giving law to setting up tabernacle. 
At Sinai, Ex. xx.- J Ex. xx.-xl. 
Num. x. 10. | Ordinances at Sinai, Lev. i.-xxvii. 

I Preparations for departure, Num. i. 1-x. 10. 

From Sinai to Kadesh, x. 11-xiv. 
Forty years' wandering, xv.-xix. 
Kadesh to plains of Sloab, in fortieth year, 
L xx.-xxxvi. 

f Moses's first address (history), i.-iv. 40. 

In plains of Moab, J M °«»'? second address ] fpTcialJxf^ 
Dt. i.-xxxiv. I Uaw - 1 ' { xxvi. 

! Moses's third address (blessing and curse), 
[ xxvii.-xxx. 

Conclusion, xxxi.-xxxiv. 



in 

MOSES THE AUTHOK OF THE PENTATEUCH 

If the Pentateuch is what it claims to be, it is of the 
greatest interest and value. It professes to record the 
origin of the world and- of the human race, a primitive 
state of innocence from which man fell by yielding to temp- 
tation, the history of the earliest ages, the relationship 
subsisting between the different nations of mankind, and 
particularly the selection of Abraham and his descend- 
ants to be the chosen people of God, the depositaries of 
divine revelation, in whose line the Son of God should in 
due time become incarnate as the Saviour of the world. 
It further contains an account of the providential events 
accompanying the development of the seed of Abra- 
ham from a family to a nation, their exodus from Egypt, 
and the civil and religious institutions under which they 
were organized in the prospect of their entry into, and 
occupation of, the land of Canaan. The contents of the 
Pentateuch stand thus in intimate relation to the prob- 
lems of physical and ethnological science, to history and 
archeology and religious faith. All the subsequent rev- 
elations of the Bible, and the gospel of Jesus Christ it- 
self, rest upon the foundation of what is contained in the 
Pentateuch, as they either presuppose or directly affirm 
its truth. 

It is a question of primary importance, therefore, both 
in itself and in its consequences, whether the Pentateuch 
is a veritable, trustworthy record, or is a heterogeneous 
mass of legend and fable from which only a modicum of 
truth can be doubtfully and with difficulty elicited. Can 



32 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

we lay it at the basis of our investigations, and implicitly 
trust its representations, or must we admit that its un- 
supported word can only be received with caution, and 
that of itself it carries but little weight ? In the settle- 
ment of this matter a consideration of no small conse- 
quence is that of the authorship of the Pentateuch. Its 
credibility is, of course, not absolutely dependent upon 
its Mosaic authorship. It might be all true, though it 
were written by another than Moses and after his time. 
But if it was written by Moses, then the history of the 
Mosaic age was recorded by a contemporary and eye- 
witness, one who was himself a participant and a leader 
in the scenes which he relates, and the legislator from 
whom the enactments proceeded ; and it must be con- 
fessed that there is in this fact the highest possible guar- 
anty of the accuracy and truthfulness of the whole. It 
is to the discussion of this point that the present chapter 
is devoted : Is the Pentateuch the work of Moses ? 

1. It is universally conceded that this was the tradi- 
tional opinion among the Jews. To this the New Testa- 
ment bears the most abundant and explicit testimony. 
The Pentateuch is by our Lord called " the book of 
Moses " (Mark xii. 26) ; when it is read and preached 
the apostles say that Moses is read (2 Cor. iii. 15) and 
preached (Acts xv. 21). The Pentateuch and the books 
of the prophets, which were read in the worship of the 
synagogue, are called both by our Lord (Luke xvi. 29, 
31) and the evangelists (Luke xxiv. 27), " Moses and 
the prophets," or " the law of Moses and the prophets " 
(Luke xxiv. 44 ; Acts xxviii. 23). Of the injunctions of the 
Pentateuch not only do the Jews say, when addressing 
our Lord, " Moses commanded " (John viii. 5), but our 
Lord repeatedly uses the same form of speech (Mat. viii. 
4 ; xix. 7, 8 ; Mark i. 44 ; x. 3 ; Luke v. 14), as testi- 
fied by three of the evangelists. Of the law in general 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 33 

be says, " Moses gave the law " (John vii. 19), and the 
evangelist echoes " the law was given by Moses " (John 
i. 17). And that Moses was not only the author of the 
law, but committed its precepts to writing, is affirmed by 
the Jews (Mark xii. 19), and also by our Lord (Mark x. 
5), who farther speaks of him as writing predictions re- 
specting himself (John v. 46, 47), and also traces a nar- 
rative in the Pentateuchal history to him (Mark xii. 26). 

It has been said that our Lord here speaks not author- 
itatively but by accommodation to the prevailing senti- 
ment of the Jews ; and that it it was not his purpose to 
settle questions in Biblical Criticism. But the fact re- 
mains that he, in varied forms of speech, explicitly con- 
firms the current, belief that Moses wrote the books 
ascribed to him. For those who reverently accept him 
as an infallible teacher this settles the question. The 
only alternative is to assume that he was not above the 
liability to err ; in other words, to adopt what has been 
called the kenotic view of his sacred person, that he com- 
pletely emptied himself of his divine nature in his incar- 
nation, and during his abode on earth was subject to all 
the limitations of ordinary men. Such a lowering of 
view respecting the incarnate person of our Lord may 
logically affect the acceptance of his instructions in other 
matters. He himself says (John iii. 12), " If I have 
told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye 
believe if I tell you of heavenly things ? " 

2. That the Pentateuch was the production of Moses, 
and the laws which it contains were the laws of Moses, 
was the firm faith of Israel from the beginning, and is 
clearly reflected in every part of the Old Testament, as 
we have already seen to be the case in the New Testa- 
ment. The final injunction of the last of the prophets 
(Mai. iv. 4) is, " Beineniber ye the law of Moses my ser- 
vant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Is- 



34 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE T«ENTATEUCH 

rael, with the statutes and judgments." The regulations 
adopted by the Jews returned from captivity were not 
recent enactments of their leaders, but the old Mosaic in- 
stitutions restored. Thus (Ezra iii. 2) they built the 
altar and established the ritual "as it is written in the 
law of Moses." After the new temple was finished they 
set priests and Levites to their respective service, " as it 
is written in the book of Moses " (Ezra vi. 18). When 
subsequently Ezra led up a fresh colony from Babylon, 
he is characterized as " a ready scribe in the law of 
Moses " (Ezra vii. 6). At a formal assembly of the people 
held for the purpose, " the book of the law of Moses " 
was read and explained to them day by day (Neh. viii. 
1, 18). Allusions are made to the injunctions of the 
Pentateuch in general or in particular as the law which 
God gave to Moses (Neh. i. 7, 8 ; viii. 14 ; ix. 14 ; x. 29), 
as written in the law (vs. 34, 36), or contained in the 
book of Moses (Neh. xiii. 1). 

In the Captivity Daniel (ix. 11, 13) refers to matters 
contained in the Pentateuch as " written in the law of 
Moses." After the long defection of Manasseh and 
Anion, the neglected " book of the law of the Lord by 
Moses " (2 Kin. xxii. 8 ; xxiii. 25 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14 ; 
xxxv. 6, 12) was found in the temple, and the reformation 
of Josiah was in obedience to its instructions. The pass- 
over of Hezekiah was observed according to the pre- 
scriptions of " the law of Moses" (2 Chron. xxx. 16), and 
in general Hezekiah is commended for having kept the 
" commandments which the Lord commanded Moses " (2 
Kin. xviii. 6). The ten tribes were carried away captive 
because they "transgressed " what "Moses commanded " 
(2 Kin. xviii. 12) ; king Amaziah did (2 Kin. xiv. 6 ; 2 
Chron. xxv. 4) " as it is written in the book of the law of 
Moses," Deut. xxiv. 16 being here quoted in exact 
terms. The high-priest Jehoiada directed the ritual " as 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 35 

it is written in the law of Moses" (2 Chron. xxiii. 18), 
while appointing the singing as it was ordained by 
David ; a discrimination which shows that there was no 
such legal fiction, as it has sometimes been contended, 
by which laws in general, even though recent, were at- 
tributed to Moses. David charged Solomon (1 Kin. ii. 
3 ; 1 Chron. xxii. 13) to keep what " is written in the law 
of Moses," and a like charge was addressed by the Lord 
to David himself (2 Kin. xxi. 7, 8 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 8). 
Solomon appointed the ritual in his temple in accordance 
with " the commandment of Moses " (2 Chron. viii. 13 ; 
1 Chron. vi. 49). When the ark was taken by David to 
Zion, it was borne " as Moses commanded " (1 Chron. xv. 
15 ; cf. 2 Sam. vi. 13). Certain of the Canaanites were 
left in the land in the time of Joshua, " to prove Israel 
by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the 
commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their 
fathers by the hand of Moses " (Judg. iii. 4). Joshua was 
directed " to do according to all the law which Moses 
commanded," and was told that " the book of the law 
should not depart out of his mouth " (Josh. i. 7, 8). And 
in repeated instances it is noted with what exactness he 
followed the directions given by Moses. 

It is to be presumed, at least until the contrary is 
shown, that "the law" and "the book of the law" have 
the same sense throughout as in the New Testament, as 
also in Josephus and in the prologue to the book of 
Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, where they are undeniably 
identical with the Pentateuch. The testimonies which 
have been reviewed show that this was from the first at- 
tributed to Moses. At the least it is plain that the sacred 
historians of the Old Testament, without exception, knew 
of a body of laws wdiich were universally obligatory and 
were believed to be the laws of Moses, and which answer 
in every particular to the laws of the Pentateuch. 



36 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

3. Let us next inquire what the Pentateuch says of 
itself. It may be roughly divided for our present pur- 
pose into its two main sections : (1) Genesis and Exo- 
dus (i.-xix.), historical ; (2) Ex. xx.-Deuteronomy, mainly 
legal. The legal portion consists of three distinct bodies 
of law, each of which has its own peculiar character and 
occasion. The first is denominated the Book of the 
Covenant and embraces Ex. xx.-xxiii., the ten command- 
ments with the accompanying judgments or ordinances, 
which were the stipulations of the covenant then for- 
mally ratified between the Lord and the people. This 
Moses is expressly said (Ex. xxiv. 4), to have written 
and read in the audience of the people, who promised 
obedience, whereupon the covenant was concluded with 
appropriate sacrificial rites. 

By this solemn transaction Israel became the Lord's 
covenant people, and he in consequence established his 
dwelling in the midst of them and there received their 
worship. This gave occasion to the second body of laws, 
the so-called Priest Code, relating to the sanctuary and 
the ritual. This is contained in the rest of Exodus 
(xxv.-xl.), with the exception of three chapters (xxxii.- 
xxxiv.) relating to the sin of the golden calf, the whole 
of Leviticus, and the regulations found in the book of 
Numbers, where they are intermingled with the history, 
which suggests the occasion of the laws and supplies the 
connecting links. This Priest Code is expressly declared 
in all its parts to have been directly communicated by 
the Lord to Moses, in part on the summit of Mount 
Sinai during his forty days' abode there, in part while 
Israel lay encamped at the base of the mountain, and in 
part during their subsequent wanderings in the wilderness. 

The third body of law is known as the Deuteronomic 
Code, and embraces the legal portion of the book of 
Deuteronomy, which was delivered by Moses to the peo- 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 37 

pie in the plains of Moab, in immediate prospect of 
Canaan, in the eleventh month of the fortieth year of 
their wanderings in the wilderness. This Moses is ex- 
pressly said to have written and to have committed to 
the custody of the Levites, who bore the ark of the cove- 
nant (Deut. xxxi. 9, 24-26). 1 

The entire law, therefore, in explicit and positive 
terms, claims to be Mosaic. The book of the Covenant 
and the Deuteronomic law are expressly affirmed to have 
been written by Moses. The Priest Code, or the ritual 
law, was given by the Lord to Moses, and by him to 
Aaron and his sons, though Moses is not in so many 
words said to have written it. 

Turning now from the laws of the Pentateuch to its 
narratives we find two passages expressly attributed to 
the pen of Moses. After the victory over Amalek at 
Rephidim, the Lord said unto Moses (Ex. xvii. 14), 
" Write this for a memorial in a book." The fact that 

1 " This law," the words of which Moses is said to have written in a 
book until they were finished, cannot be restricted with Robertson 
Smith to Deut. xii.-xxvi., as is evident from iv. 44, nor even with 
Dillmann to v.-xxvi., as appears from i. 5 ; xxviii. 58, 61 ; xxix. 
20, 27. It is doubtful whether it can even be limited to Deut. i.-xxxi. 
In favor of the old opinion, that it embraced in addition the preceding 
books of the Pentateuch, may be urged that Deuteronomy itself recog- 
nizes a prior legislation of Moses binding upon Israel (iv. 5, 14 ; xxix. 
1; xvii. 9-11; xxiv. 8.; xxvii. 26, which affirms as ''words of this 
law" the antecedent curses (vs. 15-25), some of which are based on laws 
peculiar to Leviticus) ; and the book of the law of Moses, by which 
Joshua was guided (Josh. i. 7, 8), must have been quite extensive. Comp. 
Josh. i. 3-5a, and Deut. xi. 24, 25 ; Josh. i. 5b, 6, and Deut. xxxi. 6, 
7 ; Josh. i. 12-15, and Num. xxxii. ; Josh. v. 2-8, and Ex. xii. 48 ; 
Josh. v. 10, 11, and Lev. xxiii. 5, 7, 11, 14; Josh. viii. 30, 31, and 
Deut. xxvii ; Josh. viii. 34, and Deut. xxviii. ; Josh. xiv. l-3a, and 
Num. xxxiv. 13-18 ; Josh. xiv. 6-14, and Num. xiv. 24 ; Josh. xvii. 
3, 4, and Num. xxvii. 6, 7 ; Josh. xx.. and Num. xxxv. 10 sqq. ; Josh. 
xx. 7, and Deut. iv. 43; Josh, xxi., and Num. xxxv. 1-8; Josh. xxii. 
1-4, and Num. xxxii.; Josh. xxii. 5, and Deut. x. 12, 13. 



38 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

such an injunction was given to Moses in this particular 
instance seems to imply that he was the proper person 
to place on record whatever was memorable and worthy 
of preservation in the events of the time. And it may 
perhaps be involved in the language used that Moses 
had already begun, or at least contemplated, the prepara- 
tion of a connected narrative, to which reference is here 
made, since in the original the direction is not as in the 
English version, "write in a book," but "in the book." 
No stress is here laid, however, upon this form of ex- 
pression for two reasons : (1) The article is indicated 
not by the letters of the text, but by the Massoretic 
points, which though in all probability correct, are not 
the immediate work of the sacred writer. (2) The arti- 
cle may, as in Num. v. 23, simply denote the book 
Avhich would be required for writing. 

Again, in Num. xxxiii. 2, a list of the various stations 
of the children of Israel in their marches or their wan- 
derings in the wilderness is ascribed to Moses, who is 
said to have Avritten their goings out according to their 
journeys by the commandment of the Lord. 

This is the more remarkable and important, because 
this list is irreconcilable with any of the divisive theories 
which undertake to parcel the text of the Pentateuch 
among different writers. It traverses all the so-called 
documents, and is incapable of being referred to any 
one ; and no assumptions of interpolations or of manip- 
ulation by the redactor can relieve the embarrassment 
into which the advocates of critical partition are thrown 
by this chapter. There is no escape from the conclusion 
that the author of this list of stations was the author of 
the entire Pentateuchal narrative from the departure out 
of Egypt to the arrival at the plains of Moab. 1 

1 See Hebraica viii., pp. 237-239 ; Presbyterian and Reformed Review, 
April, 1894, pp., 281-284. 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 39 

No explicit statements are made in the Pentateuch it- 
self in regard to any other paragraphs of the history than 
these two. But it is obvious from the whole plan and con- 
stitution of the Pentateuch that the history and the leg- 
islation are alike integral parts of one complete work. 
Genesis and the opening chapters of Exodus are plainly 
preliminary to the legislation that follows. The histori- 
cal chapters of Numbers constitute the framework in 
which the laws are set, binding them all together and 
exhibiting the occasion of each separate enactment. If 
the legislation in its present form is, as it claims to be, 
Mosaic, then beyond all controversy the preparatory 
and connecting history must be Mosaic likewise. If 
the laws, as we now have them, came from Moses, by 
inevitable sequence the history was shaped by the same 
hand, and the entire Pentateuch, history as well as 
legislation, must be what it has already been seen all 
after ages steadfastly regarded it, the production of 
Moses. 

4. The style in which the laws of the Pentateuch are 
framed, and the terms in which they are drawn up, cor- 
respond with the claim which they make for themselves, 
and which all subsequent ages make for them, that they 
are of Mosaic origin. Their language points unmistak- 
ably to the sojourn in the wilderness prior to the occu- 
pation of Canaan as the time when they were produced. 
The people are forbidden alike to do after the doings of 
the land of Egypt, wherein they had dwelt, or those of 
the land of Canaan, whither God was bringing them (Lev. 
xviii. 3). They are reminded (Deut. xii. 9) that they had 
not yet come to the rest and the inheritance which the 
Lord their God was giving them. The standing desig- 
nation of Canaan is the land which the Lord giveth thee 
to possess it (Deut. xv. 4, 7). The laws look forward to 
the time " when thou art come into the land, etc., and 



40 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

shalt possess it " (Deut. xvii. 14 ; Lev. xiv. 34, etc.) ; or 
" when the Lord hath cut off these nations and thou suc- 
ceedest them, and dwellest in their cities " (Deut. xix. 1), 
as the period when they are to go into full operation 
(Deut. xii. 1, 8, 9). The place of sacrifice is uot where 
Jehovah has fixed his habitation, but " the place which 
Jehovah shall choose to place his name there " (Deut. 
xii. 5, etc.). Israel is contemplated as occupying a camp 
(Num. v. 2-4, etc.) and living in tents (Lev. xiv. 8), and 
in the wilderness (Lev. xvi. 21, 22). The bullock of the 
sin-offering was to be burned without the camp (Lev. iv. 
12, 21) ; the ashes from the altar were to be carried 
without the camp (vi. 11). The leper was to have his 
habitation without the camp (xiii. 46) ; the priest was to 
go forth out of the camp to inspect him (xiv. 3) ; cere- 
monies are prescribed for his admission to the camp 
(ver. 8) as well as the interval which must elapse before 
his return to his own tent. In slaying an animal for 
food, the only possibilities suggested are that it may be 
in the camp or out of the camp (xvii. 3). The law of 
the consecration of priests respects by name Aaron and 
his sons (viii. 2 sqq.). Two of these sons, Nadab and Abi- 
hu, commit an offence which causes their death, a cir- 
cumstance which calls forth some special regulations 
(Lev. ch. x.), among others those of the annual day of 
atonement (Lev. xvi. 1) on which Aaron was the cele- 
brant (ver. 3 sqq.), and the camp and the wilderness the 
locality (vs. 21, 22, 26, 27). The tabernacle, the ark, and 
other sacred vessels were made of shittim wood (Ex. 
xxxvi. 20), which was peculiar to the wilderness. The 
sacred structure was made of separate boards, so joined 
together that it could be readily taken apart, and explicit 
directions are given for its transportation as Israel jour- 
neyed from place to place (Num. iv. 5 sqq.), and gifts of 
wagons and oxen were made for the purpose (Num. 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 41 

vii.). Specific instructions are given for the arrangement 
of the several tribes, both in their encampments and their 
marches (Num. ii.). Silver trumpets were made to direct 
the calling of the assembly and the journeying of the 
host (Num. x. 2 sqq.). The ceremonies of the red heifer 
were to be performed without the camp (Num. xix. 3, 7, 
9) and by Eleazar personally (vs. 3, 4). The law of puri- 
fication provides simply for death in tents and in the 
open fields (vs. 14, 16). 

The peculiarity of these laws carries with it the evi- 
dence that they were not only enacted during the so- 
journ in the wilderness, but that they were then com- 
mitted to writing. Had they been preserved orally, the 
forms of expression would have been changed insensibly, 
to adapt them to the circumstances of later times. It is 
only the unvarying permanence of a written code, that 
could have perpetuated these laws in a form which in 
after ages, when the people were settled in Canaan, and 
Aaron and his sons were dead, no longer described di- 
rectly and precisely the thing to be done, but must be 
mentally adapted to an altered state of affairs before they 
could be carried into effect. 

The laws of Deuteronomy are, besides, prefaced by two 
farewell addresses delivered by Moses to Israel on the 
plains of Moab (Deut. i. 5 sqq. ; v. 1 sqq.), which are pre- 
cisely adapted to the situation, and express those feel- 
ings to which the great leader might most appropriately 
have given utterance under the circumstances. And the 
most careful scrutiny shows that the diction and style of 
thought in these addresses is identical with that of the 
laws that follow. Both have emanated from one mind 
and pen. The laws of Deuteronomy are further followed 
by a prophetic song (Deut. xxxii.) which Moses is said 
to have written (xxxi. 22), and by a series of blessings upon 
the several tribes, which he is said to have pronounced 



42 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

before his death (xxxiii. 1), all which are entirely appro- 
priate in the situation. 

The genuineness of these laws is further vouched for 
by the consideration that a forged body of statutes 
could never be successfully imposed upon any people. 
These laws entered minutely into the affairs of daily life, 
imposed burdens that would not have been voluntarily 
assumed, and could only have been exacted by compe- 
tent authority. That they were submitted to and obeyed, 
is evidence that they really were ordained by Moses, in 
whose name they were issued. If they had first made 
their appearance in a later age, the fraud would inevi- 
tably have been detected. The people could not have 
been persuaded that enactments, never before heard of, 
had come down from the great legislator, and were in- 
vested with his authority. 

And the circumstance that these laws are said to have 
been given at Mount Sinai, in the wilderness, or in the 
plains of Moab, is also significant. How came they to be 
attributed to a district outside of the holy land, which 
had no sacred associations in the present or in the patri- 
archal age, unless they really were enacted there ? and if 
so, this could only have been in the days of Moses. 

5. The Pentateuch is either directly alluded to, or its 
existence implied in numerous passages in the subse- 
quent books of the Bible. The book of Joshua, which 
records the history immediately succeeding the age of 
Moses, is full of these allusions. It opens with the chil- 
dren of Israel in the plains of Moab, and on the point of 
crossing the Jordan, just where Deuteronomy left them. 
The arrangements for the conquest and the subsequent 
division of the land are in precise accordance with the 
directions of Moses, and are executed in professed obe- 
dience to his orders. The relationship is so pervading, 
and the correspondence so exact that those who dispute 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 43 

the genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch are 
obliged to deny that of Joshua likewise. The testimony 
rendered to the existence of the Pentateuch by the books 
of Chronicles at every period of the history which they 
cover, is so explicit and repeated that it can only be set 
aside by impugning the truth of their statements and al- 
leging that the writer has throughout colored the facts 
which he reports by his own prepossessions, and has 
substituted his own imagination, or the mistaken belief 
of a later period, for the real state of the case. 

But the evidence furnished by the remaining historical 
books, though less abundant and. clear, tends in the same 
direction. And it is the same with the books of the proph- 
ets and the Psalms. We find scattered everywhere allu- 
sions to the facts recorded in the Pentateuch, to its insti- 
tutions, and sometimes to its very language, which afford 
cumulative proof that its existence was known, and its 
standard authority recognized by the writers of all 
the books subsequent to the Mosaic age. (See note 1, 
p. 52.) 

6. Separate mention should here be made, and stress 
laid upon the fact, which is abundantly attested, that the 
Pentateuch was known, and its authority admitted in the 
apostate kingdom of the ten tribes from the time of the 
schism of Jeroboam. In order to perpetuate his power 
and prevent the return of the northern tribes to the sway 
of the house of David, he established a separate sanctu- 
ary and set up an idolatrous worship. Both the rulers 
and the people had the strongest inducement to disown 
the Pentateuch, by which both their idolatrous worship 
and their separate national existence were so severely 
condemned. And yet the evidence is varied and abun- 
dant that their national life, in spite of its degeneracy, 
had not wholly emancipated itself from the institutions 
of the Pentateuch, and that even their debased worship 



44 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

was but a perverted form of that purer service which the 
laws of Moses had ordained. 

It was at one time thought that the Samaritan Penta- 
teuch supplied a strong argument at this point. The 
Samaritans, while they recognized no other portion of 
the canon of the Old Testament, are in possession of the 
Pentateuch in the Hebrew language, but written in a 
peculiar character, which is a more ancient and primitive 
form of the alphabet than that which is found in any 
Hebrew manuscript. It was argued, that such was the 
hostility between Jews and Samaritans, that neither 
could have adopted the Pentateuch from the other. 
It was consequently held that the Samaritan Pentateuch 
must be traced to copies existing in the kingdom of the 
ten tribes, which further evidence that the Pentateuch 
must have existed at the time of the revolt of Jeroboam, 
and have been of such undisputed divine authority then 
that even in their schism from Judah and their apostasy 
from the true worship of God they did not venture to 
discard it. Additional investigation, however, has shown 
that this argument is unsound. The Samaritans are not 
descendants of the ten tribes but of the heathen colonists 
introduced into the territory of Samaria by the Assyrian 
monarchs, after the ten tribes had been carried into cap- 
tivity (2 Kin. xvii. 24). And the Samaritan Pentateuch 
does not date back of the Babylonish exile. The mu- 
tual hatred of the Jews and the Samaritans originated 
then. The Samaritans, in spite of their foreign birth, 
claimed to be the brethren of the Jews and proposed to 
unite with them in rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem 
(Ezr. iv. 2, 3) ; but the Jews repudiated their claim and 
refused their offered assistance. The Samaritans thus 
repulsed sought in every way to hinder and annoy the 
Jews and frustrate their enterprise, and finally built a 
a rival temple of their own on the summit of Mount 



MOSES THE AUTHOE OF THE PENTATEUCH 45 

Gerizim. Meanwhile, to substantiate their claim of be- 
ing sprung from ancient Israel, they eagerly accepted 
the Pentateuch, which was brought them by a renegade 
priest. 

While, therefore, in our present argument no signifi- 
cance can be attached to the Samaritan Pentateuch, Ave 
have convincing proof from other sources that the books of 
Moses were not unknown in the kingdom of the ten tribes. 
The narrative of the schism in 1 Kin. xii. describes in 
detail the measures taken by Jeroboam in evident and 
avowed antagonism to the regulations of the Pentateuch 
previously established. And the books of the prophets 
Hosea and Amos, who exercised their ministry in the ten 
tribes, in their rebukes and denunciations, in their de- 
scriptions of the existing state of things and its contrast 
with former times, draw upon the facts of the Pentateuch, 
refer to its laws, and make use of its phrases and forms 
of speech. (See note 2, p. 56.) 

7. A further argument is furnished by the elementary 
character of the teachings of the Pentateuch as compared 
with later Scriptures in which the same truths are more 
fully expanded. The development of doctrine in re- 
spect to the future state, providential retribution, the 
spiritual character of true worship, angels, and the Mes- 
siah, shows very plainly that the Pentateuch belongs to 
an earlier period than the book of Job, the Psalms, and 
the Prophets. 

8. The Egyptian words and allusions to Egyptian cus- 
toms, particularly in the life of Joseph, the narrative of the 
residence of Israel in Egypt and their journeyings through 
the wilderness, and in the enactments, institutions, and 
symbols of the Pentateuch indicate great familiarity on 
the part of the author and his readers with Egyptian 
objects, and agree admirably with the Mosaic period ; 
Moses himself having been trained at the court of 



46 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

Pharaoh and the long servitude of the people having 
brought them into enforced contact with the various 
forms of Egyptian life and taught them skill in those arts 
which were carried in Egypt to great perfection. 

These, briefly stated,, are the principal arguments of a 
positive nature for Moses's authorship of the books 
which bear his name. They are ascribed to him by unan- 
imous and unbroken tradition from the days of Moses 
himself through the entire period of the Old Testament, 
and from that onward. This has the inspired and au- 
thoritative sanction of the writers of the New Testa- 
ment and of our Lord himself. It corresponds with the 
claim which these books make for themselves, corrob- 
orated as this is by their adaptation in style and charac- 
ter to their alleged origin, and by the evidence afforded 
in all the subsequent Scriptures of their existence and 
recognized authority from the time of their first pro- 
mulgation, and that even in the schismatical kingdom of 
Jeroboam in spite of all attempts to throw off its control. 
And it derives additional confirmation from the progress 
of doctrine in the Old Testament, which indicates that 
the Pentateuch belongs to the earliest stage of divine 
revelation, as well as from the intimate acquaintance 
with Egyptian objects which it betrays and which is 
best explained by referring it to the Mosaic age. 

The assaults which have been made in modern times 
upon the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch have 
been mainly in one or other of four distinct lines or in 
all combined. It is alleged that the Pentateuch cannot 
be the work of Moses, because (1) It contains anach- 
ronisms, inconsistencies, and incongruities. (2) It is 
of composite origin, and cannot be the work of any one 
writer. (3) Its three codes belong to different periods 
and represent different stages of national development. 
(4) The disregard of its laws shows that they had no exist- 






MOSES THE AUTHOE OF THE PENTATEUCH 47 

ence for ages after the time of Moses. The first of these 
is the ground of the earliest objections ; the second is 
the position taken by most of the literary critics ; the 
third and fourth represent that of those who follow the 
lead of Graf and Wellhausen. 



THE EARLIEST OBJECTIONS. 

Certain ancient heretics denied that Moses wrote the 
Pentateuch, because they took offence at some of its con- 
tents ; 1 apart from this his authorship was unchallenged 
until recent times. The language of Jerome 2 has some- 
times been thought to indicate that it was to him a mat- 
ter of indifference whether the Pentateuch was written 
by Moses or by Ezra. But his words have no such 
meaning. He is alluding to the tradition current among 
the fathers, that the law of Moses perished in the de- 
struction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, but was mi- 
raculously restored word for word by Ezra, who was di- 
vinely inspired for the purpose. Its Mosaic authorship 
was unquestioned ; but whether the story of its miracu- 
lous restoration was to be credited or not was to Jerome 
of no account. 

Isaac ben Jasos in the eleventh century is said to have 
held that Gen. xxxvi. was much later than the time 
of Moses. 3 Aben Ezra, in the twelfth century, found 
what he pronounces an insoluble mystery in the words 
"beyond Jordan" (Deut. i. 1), "Moses wrote" (Deut. 
xxxi. 9), " The Canaanite was then in the land " (Gen. 
xii. 6), " In the Mount of Jehovah he shall be seen " 
(Gen. xxii. 14), and the statement respecting the iron 

1 Clementine Homilies, iii. 46, 47. 

2 Contra Helvidium : Sive Mosen dicere volueris auctorem Penta- 
tenchi, sive Esram instauratorem operis, non recuse 

3 Studien und Kritiken for 1832, pp. 639 sqq. 



48 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

bedstead of Og in Deut. iii. 11, from which it has been 
inferred, though he does not express himself clearly on 
the subject, that he regarded these passages as post-Mo- 
saic interpolations. Peyrerius 1 finds additional ground 
of suspicion in the reference to the book of the wars of 
the Lord (Num. xxi. 14), to the Lord having given to 
Israel the land of their possession (Deut. ii. 12), and 
" until this day " (Deut. iii. 14). He also complains of 
obscurities, lack of orderly arrangement, repetitions, 
omissions, transpositions, and improbable statements. 
Spinoza 2 adds as non-Mosaic " Dan " (Gen. xiv. 14, see 
Judg. xviii. 29), "the kings that reigned in Edom before 
there reigned any king in Israel " (Gen. xxxvi. 31), the 
continuance of the manna (Ex. xvi. 35), and Num. xii. 3, 
as too laudatory to be from the pen of Moses ; and he 
remarks that Moses is always spoken of in the third per- 
son. His opinion was that Moses wrote his laws from 
time to time, which were subsequently collected and the 
history inserted by another, the whole being finally 
remodelled by Ezra, and called the Books of Moses be- 
cause he was the principal subject. Hobbes 3 points to 
some of the above-mentioned passages as involving an- 
achronisms, and concludes that Moses wrote no part of 
the Pentateuch except the laws in Deut. xi.-xxvii. Rich- 
ard Simon 4 held that Moses wrote the laws, but the his- 
torical portions of the Pentateuch were the work of 
scribes or prophets, who were charged with the function 
of recording important events. The narratives and gene- 
alogies of Genesis were taken by Moses from older writ- 
ings or oral tradition, though it is impossible to distin- 
guish between what is really from Moses and what is 

1 Systema Theologicum ex Praeadamitarum Hypothesi, 1655. 

2 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1670. 

3 In his Leviathan, 1651. 

* Histoire Critique du Vienx Testament, 1685. 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 49 

derived from later sources. Le Clerc x maintained that the 
Pentateuch was written by the priest of Samaria sent by 
the king of Assyria to instruct the heathen colonists in 
the land of Israel (2 Kings xvii. 26) ; a baseless conject- 
ure, which he subsequently abandoned. He increased 
the list of passages assumed to point to another author 
than Moses, claiming that the description of the garden 
of Eden (Gen. ii. 11, 12) and of the rise of Babylon and 
Nineveh (Gen. x. 8) must have been by a writer in Chal- 
dea; that "Ur of the Chaldees " (Gen. xi. 28, 31), "the 
tower of Eder " (Gen. xxxv. 21, see Mic. iv. 8), " He- 
bron " (Gen. xiii. 18, see Josh. xiv. 15), " land of the 
Hebrews " (Gen. xl. 15), the word ions " prophet" (Gen. 
xx. 7, see 1 Sam. ix. 9) are all terms of post-Mosaic ori- 
gin ; and that the explanation respecting Moses and 
Aaron (Ex. vi. 25, 26) and respecting the capacity of the 
"omer" (xvi. 36) would be superfluous for contemporaries. 
He thus deals with the argument from the New Testa- 
ment : 2 "It will be said, perhaps, that Jesus Christ and 
the apostles often quote the Pentateuch under the name 
of Moses, and that their authority should be of greater 
weight than all our conjectures. But Jesus Christ and 
the apostles not having come into the world to teach the 
Jews criticism, we must not be surprised if they speak in 
accordance with the common opinion. It was of little 
consequence to them whether it was Moses or another, 
provided the history was true ; and as the common opin- 
ion was not prejudicial to piety they took no great pains 
to disabuse the Jews." 

All these superficial objections were most ably an- 
swered by Witsius 3 and Carpzov. 4 

1 Sentimens de qnelques Theologiens de Hollande, 1685. a Ibid. , p. 126. 

3 Miscellanea Sacra, 2d edition, 1736, I., ch. xiv., An Moses auctor 
Pentateuclii. 

4 Introductio ad Libros Canonicos Veteris Testamenti, Editio Noya, 
1731, I., pp. 57sqq. 



50 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

" Beyond Jordan " (Deut. i. 1), said of Moses's position 
east of the river, does not imply that the writer was in 
the land of Canaan, as is plain from the ambiguity of 
the expression. In Num. xxxii. 19 it is in the very same 
sentence used first of the west and then of the east side 
of the Jordan ; elsewhere it is defined as " beyond Jor- 
dan eastward " (Deut. iv. 47, 49 ; Josh. i. 15 ; xii. 1 ; xiii. 
8, 27, 32), and " beyond Jordan westward " (Deut. xi. 30 ; 
Josh. v. 1 ; xii. 7 ; xxii. 7) ; and in the addresses of 
Moses it is used alike of the east (Deut. iii. 8) and of the 
west (vs. 20, 25). This ambiguity is readily explained 
from the circumstances of the time. Canaan was " be- 
yond Jordan " to Israel encamped in the plains of Moab ; 
and the territory east of the river was " beyond Jordan " 
to Canaan, the land promised to their fathers, and which 
they regarded as their proper home. 

" The Canaanite was then in the land " (Gen. xii. 6) 
states that they were in the country in the days of Abra- 
ham, but without any implication that they were not 
there still. " In the Mount of Jehovah he shall be seen " 
(Gen. xxii. 14) contains no allusion to his manifestation 
in the temple, which was afterward erected on that very 
mountain, but is based on his appearance to Abraham in 
the crisis of his great trial. The bedstead of Og (Deut. 
iii. 11) is not spoken of as a relic from a former age, but 
as a memorial of a recent victory. " The book of the 
wars of Jehovah " (Num. xxi. 14) was no doubt a contem- 
poraneous production celebrating the triumphs gained 
under almighty leadership, to which Moses here refers. 
As the territory east of the Jordan had already been con- 
quered and occupied, Moses might well speak (Deut. ii. 
12) of the land of Israel's possession, which Jehovah 
gave to them. The words " unto this day " (Deut. iii. 14) 
have by many been supposed to be a supplementary 
gloss subsequently added to the text ; but this assump- 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 51 

tion is scarcely necessary, when it is remembered that 
several months had elapsed since the time referred to, and 
Havvoth-jair proved to be not only a name imposed by a 
successful warrior in the moment of his victory, but one 
which had come into general use and promised to be per- 
manent. There is no proof that the " Dan " of Gen. xiv. 
14 is the same as that of Judg. xviii. 29 ; or if it be, 
there is no difficulty in supposing that in the course of 
repeated transcription the name in common use in later 
times was substituted for one less familiar which origi- 
nally stood in the text. The kings of Edom who are 
enumerated in Gen. xxxvi. were pre-Mosaic ; and Moses 
remarks upon the singular fact that Jacob, who had the 
promise of kings among his descendants (Gen. xxxv. 11), 
had as yet none, and they were just beginning their na- 
tional existence, while Esau, to whom no such promise had 
been given, already reckoned several. There is nothing in 
Ex. xvi. 35 which Moses could not have written ; nor 
even in Num. xii. 3, when the circumstances are duly 
considered (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 10 ; 2 Cor. xi. 5 ; xii. 11). And 
the additional passages urged by Le Clerc have not even 
the merit of plausibility. His notion that our Lord and 
his apostles accommodated their teaching to the errors 
of their time, refutes itself to those who acknowledge 
their divine authority. Witsius well says that if they 
were not teachers of criticism they were teachers of the 
truth. 

It should further be observed, that even if it could be 
demonstrated that a certain paragraph or paragraphs were 
post-Mosaic, this would merely prove that such para- 
graph or paragraphs could not have belonged to the 
Pentateuch as it came from the pen of Moses, not that 
the work as a whole did not proceed from him. It is far 
easier to assume that some slight additions may here and 
there have been made to the text, than to set aside the 



52 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

multiplied and invincible proofs that the Pentateuch was 
the production of Moses. 

Note to page 43. 

1. The book of Judges records a series of relapses on the part of the 
people from the true worship of God, ii. 10-12, aud the judgments inflict- 
ed upon them in consequence by suffering them to fall under the power 
of their enemies, ii. 14, 15, as had been foretold Lev. xxvi. 16b, 17. 
This extraordinary condition of things led to many seeming departures 
from the Mosaic requirements, which have been alleged to show that 
the law was not then in existence. That no such conclusion is war- 
ranted by the facts of the case will be shown hereafter, see pp. 150 sqq. 
For other points of contact with the Pentateuch, comp. i. 1, 2, xx. 
18, and Gen. xlix. 8, Num. ii. 3, x. 14; i. 5, Gen. xiii. 7 ; i. 17, Deut. 
vii. 2 ; i. 20, Num. xiv. 24. Deut. i. 36; ii. 1, Gen. 1. 24, xvii. 7 ; ii. 2, 
Ex. xxxiv. 12, 13, Deut vii. 2, 5, Ex. xxiii. 21 ; ii. 3, Num. xxxiii. 55, 
Ex. xxiii. 33, Deut. vii. 16 ; ii. 17, Ex. xxxiv. 15, xxxii. 8 ; iii. 6, Ex. 
xxxiv. 16. Deut. vii. 3, 4 ; v. 4, 5, Deut. xxxiii. 2 ; v. 8, Deut. xxxii. 
17 ; vi. 8, Ex. xx. 2 ; vi. 9, Ex. xiv. 30 ; vi. 13, Deut. xi. 3-5; vi. 16, 
Ex. iii. 12 ; vi. 22. 23. xiii. 22, Ex. xxxiii. 20 ; vi. 39, Gen. xviii. 32 ; 
vii. 18, Num. x. 9 ; viii. 23, Deut xxxiii. 5, the government established 
by Moses was a theocracy, the highest civil ruler being a judge, Deut. 
xvii. 9, 12 ; viii. 27, superstitious use of the ephod comp. Ex. xxviii. 4, 
30 ; xi. 13, Num. xxi. 24-26 ; xi. 15, Deut. ii. 9, 19 ; xi. 16, Num. xiv. 
25, xx. 1 ; xi. 17-22, Num. xx. 14, 18, 21, xxi. 21-24 ; xi. 25, Num. xxii. 
2 ; xi. 35b, Num. xxx. 2, Deut. xxiii. 24 (E. V. ver. 23) ; xiii. 7, 14, 
xvi. 17, Num. vi. 1-5, Deut. xiv. 2; xiv. 3, xv. 18, Gen. xvii. 11 ; 
xvii. 7-9, xix. 1, Num. xviii. 24, Deut. x. 9 ; xviii. 31, Ex. xl. 2, Josh. 
xviii. 1 ; xx. 1, xxi. 10, 13, 16, 7X1$ a word claimed as peculiar to the 
Priest Code ; xx. 3, 6, 10, Gen. xxxiv. 7, Lev. xviii. 17, Deut. xxii. 21 ; 
xx. 13, Deut. xvii. 12 ; xx. 18, 27, Num. xxvii. 21 ; xx. 26, xxi. 4, Ex. 
xx. 24; xx. 27, Ex. xxv. 21, 22; xx. 28, Num. xxv. 11-13, Deut. x. 8 ; 
xx. 48, UTta "Py as Deut. ii. 34, iii. 6. 

Comp. Ruth iii. 12, iv. 3, 4, and Lev. xxv. 25 ; iv. 5, 10, Deut. xxv. 5, 
6 ; iv. 11, 12, Gen. xxix. , xxx., xxxviii. The obligation of the levirate 
marriage has in the course of time been extended from the brother of 
the deceased to the nearest relative ; as in the case of Samson and Sam- 
uel the Nazarite vow is for life instead of a limited term. 

1 Samuel. Comp. i. 11 and Num. vi. 5 ; ii. 2, Ex. xv. 11, Deut. 
xxxii. 4, 31 ; ii. 6, Deut. xxxii. 39 ; ii. 13, Deut. xviii. 3 ; ii. 22, Ex. 
xxxviii. 8 ; ii. 27, Ex. iv. 27-v. 1, etc.; ii. 28, Ex. xxviii. 1, 4, xxx. 7, 
8, Num. xviii. 9, 11 ; ii 29, iii. 14, sacrifice and meal-offering, x. 8, 
etc., burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, vi. 3, trespass-offerings, vii. 9, 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 53 

whole burnt-offering as Deut. xxxiii. 10 (2 Sam. i. 21, heave-offerings), 
implying a fully developed ritual ; iii. 3, iv. 4 (2 Sam. vi. 2), Ex. xxv. 
10, 18, 37, Lev. xxiv. 3 ; iv. 3 (2 Sam. xi. 11), Num. x. 35 ; vi. 15, 19, 
(2 Sam. vi. 13, xv. 24), Num. iv. 15; viii. 3, Deut. xvi. 19; viii. 5. 
Deut. xvii. 14 ; x. 24, Deut. xvii. 15 ; xii. 14, Deut. i. 43, ix. 23 ; xii. 
6, 8, Ex. iii. 10, vi. 13 ; xii. 3, Num. xvi. 15 ; xiii. 9-13, Num. xviii. 
4 ; xv. 2, Ex. xvii. 8, 14, Deut. xxv. 17-19 ; xv. 6, Num. x. 29, 30, 
see Judg. i. 16, iv. 11 ; xv. 29, Num. xxiii. 19; xiv. 33, 34, Gen. ix. 
4, Lev. iii. 17 ; xxi. 9, xxiii. 6, 9, xxx. 7, Lev. viii. 7, 8 ; xxviii. 3, 
Ex. xxii. 17 (E. V. ver. 18), Deut. xviii. 10, 11 ; xxviii. 6, Num. xii. 
6, xxvii. 21. 

2 Samuel. Comp. vi. 6, 7, and Num. iv. 15 ; vii. 6, Ex. xl. 19, 24 ; 
vii. 22, Deut. iii. 24; vii. 23, Deut. iv. 7, ix. 26, x. 21, xxxiii. 29 ; vii. 
24, Ex. vi. 7 ; viii. ; 4, Deut. xvii. 16 ; xi. 4, Lev. xv. 19 ; xii. 6, Ex. 
xxi. 37 (E. V. xxii. 1) ; xii. 9, Num. xv. 31 ; xv. 7-9, Num. xxx. 2 ; 
xxii. 23, Deut. vi. 1. 

The books of Kings, it is universally conceded, exhibit an acquaint- 
ance with Deuteronomy and with those portions of the Pentateuch 
which the critics attribute to JE. It will only be necessary here, there- 
fore, to point out its allusions to the Priest Code. The plan of Solomon s 
temple, 1 Kin. vi., vii., is evidently based upon that of the Mosaic 
tabernacle, Ex. xxvi., xxvii., xxx. ; the golden altar, vii. 48, the brazen 
altar, viii. 64, the horns of the altar, i. 50, ii. 28, the lavers, vii. 43, 44, 
the table of shew-bread andthe candlesticks, with their lamps, vii. 48, 49, 
the cherubim upon the walls and in the holiest apartment, vi. 27-29, the 
dimensions of the building, and of each apartment, vi. 2, 16, 17, its being 
overlaid with gold, vi. 22, and all its vessels made of gold, vii. 48-50, and 
the Mosaic ark, the tent of meeting, and all the vessels of the tabernacle 
were brought by the priests and Levites and deposited in the temple, 
viii. 4. The feast was held in the seventh month, viii. 2, on the fifteenth 
day, xii. 32, 33, for seven days and seven days (twice the usual time on 
account of the special character of the occasion), viii. 65, and the people 
were dismissed on the eighth day, ver. 66, comp. Lev. xxiii. 34, 36. They 
had assembled from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt, 
viii. 65, Num. xxxiv. 5, 8. The glory of the Lord filled the temple, 
viii. 10, 11, as the tabernacle, Ex. xl. 34, 35; patrimony inalienable, 
xxi. 3, Lev. xxv. 23 ; blasphemer to be stoned, xxi. 13, Lev. xxiv. 16 ; 
evening meal offering xviii. 29, morning meal-offering, 2 Kin iii. 20, 
Ex xxix. 39-41 ; new moon hallowed, 2 Kin. iv. 23, Num. x. 10, 
xxviii. 11 ; laws concerning leprosy, 2 Kin. vii. 3, xv. 5, Lev. xiii. 46 ; 
high priest, xii. 10, xxii. 4, xxiii. 4, Lev. xxi. 10, Num. xxxv. 25; tres- 
pass-offering and sin-offering, xii. 16. Lev. iv., v. 15 (Deut. xiv. 24, 25) ; 
the money of every one that passeth the numbering ... by his 



54 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

estimation, xii. 5 (ver 4, see marg. R. V.), Ex. xxx. 13, Lev. xxvii. 2 ; 
meal-offering, drink-offering, brazen altar before the Lord, xvi. 13-15 ; 
unleavened bread the food of priests, xxiii. 9, Lev. vi. 16-18. 

The books of the prophets also contain repeated allusions to the Pen- 
tateuch, its history, and its institutions. 

Joel shows the deepest interest in the ritual service, i. 9, 13, 10, ii. 
14-17 ; and recognizes but one sanctuary, ii. 1, 15, iii. 17 (Heb. iv. 17; ; 
comp. i. 10 and Deut. xxviii. 51 ; ii. 2b, Ex. x. 14b ; ii. 3, Gen. ii. 8 ; 
ii. 13, Ex. xxxiv. 6, xxxii. 14; ii. 23, 24, Deut. xi. 14. 

Isaiah uses the term " law " to denote, or at least as including, God's 
authoritative revelation through the prophets, i. 10, ii. 3, v. 24, but also 
as additional to the word of God by the prophets, xxx. 9, 10, and of 
high antiquity, xxiv. 5, and the test of all professed revelations, viii. 
16, 20, since there are prophets that mislead, ix. 15, xxviii. 7, xxix. 10. 
To a people strenuous in observing the letter of the Mosaic law, but dis- 
regarding its spirit, he announces the law of God to be that the union 
of iniquity with the most sacred rites of his worship was intolerable to 
the Most High, i. 10-14. There is in this no depreciation of sacrifice, 
for like language is used of prayer, ver. 15, and of worship generally, 
xxix. 13 ; and acceptable worship is described under ritual forms, xix. 
21, lxvi. 20-23, in contrast with vs. 1-3. The terms of the ceremonial 
law abound in i. 11-13 : sacrifices, burnt offerings, oblations (meal-offer 
ings), incense ; fat, blood ; rams, bullocks, lambs, he-goats ; appear 
before me ; court ; new moon, Sabbath, calling of assemblies (convoca- 
tions), solemn meeting (assembly), appointed feasts; abomination. 
The vision of ch. vi gives the most explicit divine sanction to the tem- 
ple, its altar and its atoning virtue. Other allusions to the law of sacri- 
fice, implying that it is acceptable and obligatory, xxxiv. 6, xl. 16, xliii. 
23, 24, lvi. 7, lx. 7 ; Messiah the true trespass-offering, liii. 10. 

Isaiah enforces the law of the unity of the sanctuary, Deut. xii. 5, 6, 
by teaching (1) That Zion is Jehovah's dwelling-place, ii. 2, 3, iv. 5, 
viii. 18, x. 32, xi. 9. xii. 6, xiv. 32, xxiv. 23, xxviii. 16, xxix. 8, xxxi. 
4, 9, lx. 14. (2) The proper place for Israel's worship, xxvii. 13, xxix. 
1, xxx. 29, xxxiii. 20, lxiv. 11. lxvi. 20; no other place of acceptable 
worship is ever mentioned or alluded to. (3) Worship elsewhere, as in 
gardens, on lofty places, and under trees, is offensive, i. 29, 30, lvii. 5-7, 
lxv. 3, 4, 11. (4) Altars of man's devising are denounced, xvii. 7, 8, 
xxvii. 9. (5) All such were abolished in Hezekiah's reform, xxxvi. 7. 
(6) No objection can be drawn from the altar and the pillar in the land 
of Egypt, xix. 19 ; for the pillar was not beside the altar, nor intended 
as an idolatrous symbol, so that it was no violation of Lev. xxvi. 1, 
Deut. xvi. 21, 22 ; and an altar in Egypt as a symbol of its worship 
paid to Jehovah is more than counterbalanced by pilgrimages to Zion 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 55 

predicted from other lands, ii. 3, xviii. 7, lvi. 7, lxvi. 20, 23. So that 
it is not even certain, whether in the conception of the prophet the re 
striction of the law in this particular was one day to be relaxed ; much 
less is there reason to imagine that this restriction was unknown to 
him. 

In addition to these recognitions of the laws of the Pentateuch Isaiah 
makes allusions to its language and to facts recorded in it. Thus comp. 
i. 2, and Deut. xxxii. 1 ; i. 7, Lev. xxvi. 33 ; i. 9, 10, iii. 9, Sodom and 
Gomorrah, Gen. xix. 24, 25, Deut. xxix. 23 (overthrow as i. 7) ; i. 17, 
23, Ex. xxii. 21 (E. V. ver. 22), Deut. x. 18, xxvii. 19 ; xi. 15, 16, lxiii. 
11-13, passage of the Red Sea and the exodus from Egypt ; xii. 2, Ex. 
xv. 2 ; xxiv. 18, Gen. vii. 11 ; xxix. 22, xli. 8, li. 2, lxiii. 16, Abraham 
and Sarah ; xxx. 17, Lev. xxvi. 8, Deut. xxxii. 30. 

Micah. Comp. i. 3b, and Deut. xxxiii. 29b ; ii. lb, Gen. xxxi. 29, 
Deut. xxviii. 32b ; ii. 9, Ex. xxii. 21 (E. V. ver. 22) ; ii. 12, iv. 6, 7, 
vii. 19, Deut. xxx. 3-5 ; ii. 13b, Ex. xiii. 21 ; iii. 4, Deut. xxxi. IS, 
xxxii. 20 ; iv. 4, Lev. xxvi. 6; v. 5 (E. V. ver. 6), land of Nimrod, 
Gen. x. 8-12 ; vi. 1, 2, Deut. xxxii. 1 ; vi. 4a, Ex. xx. 2, Deut. vii. 8 ; 
vi. 4b, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam ; vi. 5, Num. xxii.-xxv. 3, xxxi. 16 ; 
v. 6 (E. V. ver. 7), Deut. xxxii. 2 ; vi. 6, 7, exaggeration of legal sacri- 
fices ; vi. 8, Deut. x. 12 ; vi. 10, 11, Deut. xxv. 13-15, Lev. xix. 35, 
36 ; vi. 13, Lev. xxvi. 16 ; vi. 14, Lev. xxvi. 26 ; vi. 15, Deut. xxviii. 
38-40 ; vii. 14, Num. xxiii. 9, Deut. xxxiii. 28 ; vii. 15, miracles of the 
exodus ; vii. 16, Ex. xv. 14-16 ; vii. 17a, Gen. iii. 14 ; vii. 17b, Deut. 
xxxii. 24b ; vii. 18a, Ex. xv. 11 ; vii. 18b, Ex. xxxiv. 6; 7. 

Jeremiah's familiarity with Deuteronomy is universally conceded; 
it will accordingly be sufficient to show that his book of prophecy is 
likewise related to other portions of the Pentateuch. Comp ii. 3, and 
Lev. xxii. 10, 15, 16 ; ii. 20, Lev. xxvi. 13 ; ii. 34 (see Rev. Ver.), Ex. 
xxii. 1 (E. V. ver. 2) ; iv. 23, Gen. i. 2 ; iv. 27, Lev. xxvi. 33 ; v. 2, 
Lev. xix. 12 ; vi. 28, ix. 4, Lev. xix. 16 ; vii. 26, Ex. xxxii. 9, xxxiii. 
3, 5, xxxiv. 9 ; ix. 4, Gen. xxvii. 36 ; ix. 16, Lev. xxvi. 33 (Deut. xxviii. 
36) ; ix. 26 (see Rev. Ver.) Lev. xix. 27, xxi. 5 ; ix. 26b. Lev. xxvi. 
41 ; xi. 4, Ex. xix. 5, Lev. xxvi. 12, 13 ; xi. 5, Ex. iii. 8, Num. xiv. 
23 ; xiv. 13, Lev. xxvi. 6 ; xiv. 19, 21, Lev. xxvi. 11, 44 ; xv. 1, Ex. 
xxxii. 11; xvi. 5, Num. vi. 26; xvii. 1, Ex. xxxii. 16 ; xvii. 22, Ex. 
xx. 8-11; xxi. 5, Ex. vi. 1, 6; xxviii. 2. 4, Lev. xxvi. 13; xxx. 21, 
Num. xvi. 5, 9 ; xxxi. 9, Ex. iv. 22 ; xxxi. 15, Gen. xxxv. 19, xxxvii. 
35, xlii. 36 ; xxxi. 29, Ex. xx. 5 ; xxxi. 35, 36, Gen. i. 16, viii. 22 ; 
xxxii. 7, 8, Lev. xxv. 25, 49 ; xxxii. 17, 27b, Gen. xviii. 14 ; xxxii. 
18, Ex. xx. 5, 6, xxxiv. 6, 7; xxxii. 27, Num. xvi. 22, xxvii. 16 ; xxxiii. 
22, Gen. xiii. 16, xv. 5, xxii. 17 ; xxxiii. 26, Abraham, Isaac, and Ja- 
cob ; xxxiv. 13, Ex. xx. 2, xxiv. 7; xxxiv. 18, 19, Geu. xv. 17 ; xxxvi. 



56 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

14, Ex. xxi. 2 ; xlviii. 45, 46, Num. xxi. 28, 29; xlix. 16, Num. xxiv. 
21 ; xlix. 18, 1. 40, Gen. xix. 25. 

Psalm xc, which is in its title ascribed to Moses, abounds in allu- 
sions to the statements of the Pentateuch and in coincidences of lan- 
guage ; see the Commentary of Delitzsch. The following may be noted 
in those Psalms of the first three books, which are in their titles 
ascribed to David (the number of each verse in the English version is 
commonly one less than in the Hebrew). Comp. iii. 4, and Gen. xv. 
1; iv. 6, li. 21, Deut. xxxiii. 19 ; iv. 7, Num. vi. 25, 26 ; iv. 9, Lev. 
xxv. 18, 19, Deut. xxxiii. 28 ; vii. 13, 14, Deut. xxxii. 23, 41, 42; viii. 
7-9, Gen. i. 26 ; ix. 6, Deut. ix. 14 ; ix. 13, Gen. ix. 5 ; ix. 17, Ex. vii. 
4b, 5; xi. 6, Gen. xix. 24; xiii. 2, Deut. xxxi. IS ; xiv. 1, Gen. vi. 11, 
12 ; xv. 5, Ex. xxii. 25, xxiii. 8 ; xvi. 4, Ex. xxiii. 13 ; xvi. 5, Num. 
xviii. 20, Deut. x. 9; xvii. 8, Deut. xxxii. 10; xviii. 16, Ex. xv. 8; 
xviii. 27b, Lev. xxvi. 23b, 24a ; xviii. 31a, 32, Deut. xxxii. 4a, 37, 39 ; 
xviii. 34b, Deut. xxxii. 13a, xxxiii. 29b ; xviii. 45b, Deut. xxxiii. 29b ; 
xix. contrasts the glory of God as seen in the heavens with that of the 
law, testimony, statutes, commandments, and judgments of Jehovah, 
Lev. xxvi. 46, xxvii. 34, Ex. xxv. 16; xx. 6, Ex. xvii. 15, Jehovah my 
banner ; xxiv. 1, Ex. ix. 29b, xix. 5b ; xxiv. 2, Gen. i. 9 ; xxv. 4, Ex. 
xxxiii. 13; xxvi. 6, Ex. xxx. 19-21; xxvii. 1, Ex. xv. 2; xxviii. 9, 
Deut ix. 29 ; xxix. 6, Sirion, Deut. iii. 9; xxix. 10, flood, Gen. vi. 17; 
xxxi. 9a, Deut. xxxii. 30 ; xxxi. 16, Num. vi. 25 ; xxxiv. 17, Lev. xvii. 
10 ; xxxv. 10, Ex. xv. 11 ; xxxvii. 26, Deut. xxviii. 12 ; xxxvii. 31, 
Deut. vi. 6 ; xxxix. 13b, Lev. xxv. 23b; xl. 7, Ex. xxi. 6?; xl. 8, the 
volume of the book is the law, which in requiring sacrifice intends 
much more than the outward form of sacrifice, ver. 7 ; it lays its real 
demand upon the person of the offerer himself ; li. 9, hyssop, Lev. xiv. 
4, Num. xix. 6, 18 ; lv. 16, Num. xvi. 30 ; lx. 9, Gen. xlix. 10 ; lx. 14, 
Num. xxiv. 18 ; lxiii. 12, Deut. vi. 13 ; Ixviii. 2, Num. x. 35 ; lxyiii. 
8, 9, 18, Sinai ; lxix. 29, Ex. xxxii. 32 ; lxxxvi. 8, 10, Ex. xv. 11, 
Deut. xxxii. 39 ; lxxxvi. 15, Ex. xxxiv. 6. 

On the traces of the Pentateuch in later books see Havernick, Ein- 
leitung in das Alte Testament (Introduction to the Old Testament), I. 
§§ 136-142. Keil, Einleitung in A. T. § 34. Caspari, Beitriige zur 
Einleitung in Jesaia (Contributions to the Introduction to Isaiah), pp. 
204 sqq. Caspari, " Ueber Micha," pp. 419 sqq. Kueper, Jeremias 
Librorum Sacrorum Interpres atque Vindex, pp. 1-51. 

Note to page 45. 

2. Allusions in Hosea and Amos to the facts recorded in the Penta- 
teuch: Comp. Hos. i. 10, and Gen. xxii. 17, xxxii. 12; xi. 8, Deut. 
xxix. 23 ; xii. 3a, Gen. xxv. 26 ; xii. 3b, 4a, Gen. xxxii. 28 ; xii. 4b, 



MOSES THE AUTHOR OF THE PENTATEUCH 57 

Gen. xxviii. 12-19, xxxv. 6-13; xii. 12, Jacob fled to Padan-aram, 
served for a wife, and kept sheep ; ii. 15b, xi. 1, xiii. 5, exodus from 
Egypt and life in the wilderness ; ix. 10, Num. xxv. 3 ; the places of 
idolatrous worship were such as were made sacred by events in the his- 
tory of their fathers, iv. 15, Josh. iv. 20, Gen. xxviii. 19 (Bethel the 
house of God is converted into Beth-aven, house of wickedness) ; xii. 
11, Gen. xxxi. 48 ; Amos, v. 8, Gen. vii. 11 ; iv. 11, Gen. xix. 24, 25 ; 
i. 11, Edom, Israel's brother, Gen. xxv. 27, Deut. xxiii. 7; iv. 4, v. 5, 
places of idolatry hallowed by events in the time of their forefathers ; 
ii. 10, iii. 1, v. 25, 26, exodus from Egypt, and forty years in the wil- 
derness, and idolatry there, Deut. v. 6, xxix. 5, Lev. xvii. 7 ; iii. 2, 
Deut. xiv. 2 ; vi. 14, Num. xxxi v. 5, 8 ; ii. 9, stature of the Amorites, 
Num. xiii. 32, 33, Deut. i, 20, 28. 

References to its laws : Hosea constantly sets forth the relation between 
Jehovah and Israel under the emblem of a marriage, comp. Ex. xx. 5, 
xxxiv. 14-16, Lev. xvii. 7, xx. 5, 6. Israel is an unfaithful wife, who 
had responded to her lord in former days, when she came up out of 
Egypt, ii. 15, Ex. xxiv. 7, but had since abandoned Lira for other lov- 
ers, ch. i.- iii., Baal and the calves, xiii. 1, 2 ; she has broken her cov- 
enant, has dealt treacherously, v. 7, vi. 7 ; has backslidden, iv. 16, xi. 
7, xiv. 4 ; is repeating the atrocity of Gibeah, ix. 9, x. 9 ; is shamelessly 
sacrificing on the hills and under shady trees, iv. 13, Deut. xii. 2 : 
Israel had an extensive written law, Hos. viii. 12 (see a discussion of 
this passage in the Presbyterian Review for October, 1886), which they 
had disobeyed, iv. 0, viii. 1 ; the annual feasts, new-moons, sabbaths, 
and festive assemblies were observed in Israel, aud held in high esteem, 
and occupied a prominent place in the life of the people, so that their 
abolition would be reckoned a serious disaster, Hos. ii. 11, ix. 5, xii. 9, 
Am. v. 21, viii. 5 ; they had burnt-offerings, meal offerings, peace- 
offerings, Am. v. 22, Hos. viii. 13 ; thank-offerings, free-will-offerings, 
Am. iv. 5 ; drink-offerings, Hos. ix. 4 ; the daily morning sacrifice, Am. 
iv. 4 ; Hos. iv. 8, alludes to the law of the sin-offering ; Hos. ix 3, 4, 
to the law of clean and unclean meats; viii. 11, xii. 11, the sin of mul- 
tiplying altars implies the law of the unity of the sanctuary, Deut. xii. 
5,6 ; v. 10, removing landmarks, Deut. xix. 14, xxvii. 17; iv. 4, the 
final reference of causes in dispute to the priest, refusal to hear whom 
was a capital offence, Deut. xvii. 12 ; viii. 13, ix. 3, penalty of a return 
to Egypt, Dent, xxviii. 68 ; ix. 4, defilement from the dead, Num. xix. 
14, 22, Deut. xxvi. 14 ; x. 11, the ox not to be muzzled when treading 
out corn, Deut. xxv. 4 ; vi. 9, Sl/27 is a technical word of the Holiness 
Laws, Lev. xviii. 17 ; xiv. 3, mercy for the fatherless, Ex. xxii. 21, 22, 
(E. V. vs. 22. 23), Deut. x. 18 ; vi. 11, Am. ix. 14, God returns to the 
captivity of his people, Deut. xxx. 3 ; Amos, though delivering his 



58 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

message in Bethel, knows but one sanctuary, that in Zion, i. 2 ; ii. 7, 
the law of incest, Lev. xx. 11, Deut. xxii. 30 ; ii. 11, 12, Nazarites, 
Num vi. 2, 3, and prophets, Deut. xviii. 15 ; iv. 4, triennial tithes, 
Deut. xiv. 28, xxvi. 12, for which in their excess of zeal they may sub- 
stitute tithes every three days ; viii. 5, falsifying the ephah, shekel, 
and balances, Lev. xix. 36, Deut. xxv. 13-15. 

Coincidences of thought or expression : Comp Hos. ii. 17, and Ex. 
xxiii. 13 ; iii. 1, look to other gods, Deut. xxxi. 18 (Heb.) ; v. 14-vi. 1, 
Deut. iv. 29, 30, xxxii. 39 ; iv. 10, Lev. xxvi. 26 ; xi. 1, Ex. iv. 22, 23 ; 
xii. 5, Ex. iii. 15 ; xiii. 6, Deut. viii. 12-14 ; Am. ii. 7, to profane my 
holy name, Lev. xx. 3 ; iv. 6, 8, Deut. xxviii. 48 ; iv. 9, Deut. xxviii. 
22; iv. 10, Deut. xxviii. 60 ; iv. 6, 8, 9, 10, Deut. iv. 30; v. 11, ix. 
14, Deut. xxviii. 30, 39 ; vi. 12, gall and wormwood, Deut. xxix. 18 ; 
ix. 13, Lev. xxvi. 5. 

For traces of the Pentateuch in the kingdom of Israel, whether in 
Hosea, Amos, or the Books of Kings, see Hengstenberg, " Authentie 
des Pentateuches," I. pp. 48-180. 



IV 

THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 

The second objection which has been urged, against 
the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch, affects its form 
rather than its contents. It is affirmed that such is the 
constitution of the Pentateuch as to evince that it is not 
the continuous composition of any one writer, but that it 
is compacted of parts of diverse origin, the products of 
different writers, themselves long posterior to the Mosaic 
age; and consequently the Pentateuch, though it may 
contain some Mosaic elements, cannot in its present 
form have proceeded from Moses, but must belong to a 
much later period. This objection is primarily directed 
against the unity of the Pentateuch, and only seconda- 
rily against its authenticity. 

In order to render intelligible the nature of the parti- 
tion hypotheses, with which we shall have to deal, the 
nomenclature which they employ, and their application 
to the Pentateuch, it will be necessary first to state pre- 
cisely what is meant by the unity for which we contend, 
and then give a brief account of the origin and history of 
those hypotheses by which it has been impugned, and 
the several forms which they have successively as- 
sumed. 

By the unity of the Pentateuch is meant that it is in its 
present form one continuous work, the product of a sin- 
gle writer. This is not opposed to the idea of his having 
had before him written sources in any number or variety, 
from which he may have drawn his materials, provided 



60 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

the composition was his own. It is of no consequence, 
so far as our present inquiry is concerned, whether the 
facts related were learned from pre-existing writings, or 
from credible tradition, or from his own personal knowl- 
edge, or from immediate divine revelation. From what- 
ever source the materials may have been gathered, if all 
has been cast into the mould of the writer's own 
thoughts, presented from his point of view, and arranged 
upon a plan and method of his own, the work possesses 
the unity which we maintain. Thus Bancroft's " History 
of the United States " rests upon a multitude of author- 
ities which its author consulted in the course of its prep- 
aration ; the facts which it records were drawn from a 
great variety of pre-existing written sources ; and yet, as 
we possess it, it is the product of one writer, who first 
made himself thoroughly acquainted with his subject, 
and then elaborated it in his own language and accord- 
ing to his own preconceived plan. It would have been 
very different, if his care had simply been to weave to- 
gether his authorities in the form of a continuous narra- 
tive, retaining in all cases their exact language, but in- 
corporating one into another or supplementing one by 
another, and thus allowing each of his sources in turn to 
speak for itself. In this case it would not have been 
Bancroft's history. He would have been merely the 
compiler of a work consisting of a series of extracts 
from various authors. Such a narrative has been made 
by harmonists of the Gospel history. They have framed 
an account of all the recorded facts by piecing together 
extracts from the several gospels arranged in what is 
conceived to be their true chronological order. And the 
result is not a new Gospel history based upon the several 
Gospels, nor is it the original Gospel either of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, or John ; but it is a compound of the whole 
of them ; and it can be taken apart paragraph by para- 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 61 

graph, or sentence by sentence, and each portion as- 
signed to the particular Gospel from which it was 
drawn. 

Now the question respecting the unity of the Penta- 
teuch is whether it is a continuous production from a 
single pen, whatever may have been the sources from 
which the materials were taken, or whether it is a com- 
posite production, made up from various writings woven 
together, the several portions of which are still capable 
of being distinguished, separated, and assigned to their 
respective originals. 



DOCUMENT HYPOTHESIS. 

The not improbable conjecture was expressed at an 
early period that there were ante-Mosaic records, to 
which Moses had access, and of which he made use in 
preparing the book of Genesis. The history of such a 
remote antiquity would seem to be better accredited if it 
had a written basis to rest upon than if it had been drawn 
solely from oral tradition. Thus the eminent orthodox 
theologian and commentator Yitringa, expressed the 
opinion in 1707, in the interest of the credibility of Gen- 
esis, that Moses collected, digested, embellished, and 
supplemented the records left by the fathers and pre- 
served among the Israelites. The peculiarity of the 
critical hypothesis, with which we are now concerned, 
however, is the contention that Genesis was not merely 
based upon pre-existing writings, but that it was framed 
out of those writings, which were incorporated in it and 
simply pieced together, so that each section and paragraph 
and sentence preserved still its original style and texture, 
indicative of the source from which it came ; and that 
by means of these criteria the book of Genesis can be 
taken apart and its original sources reproduced. The 



62 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

first suggestion of this possibility and the first attempt 
actually to realize it by decomposing the book into the 
prior documents supposed to have been embedded in it, 
was made in 1753 by As true, a French physician of con- 
siderable learning, but of profligate life, in a treatise en- 
titled " Conjectures Concerning the Original Memoranda 
which it appears Moses used to Compose the Book of 
Genesis." 1 This hypothesis was adopted and elaborated 
with great learning and ingenuity by Eichhorn, 2 the dis- 
tinguished professor of Oriental literature at Gottingen, 
to whose skilful advocacy it owed much of its sudden 
popularity. 

1 Conjectures sur les Memoires Originaux, dont it paroit que Moyse 
s'est servi pour composer le Livre de la Genese. Avec des Remarques, 
qui appuient ou qui eclaircissent ces Conjectures. This was published 
anonymously at Brussels. For an account of the life and character of 
the author see the Article Jean Astruc, by Dr. Howard Osgood, in 
The Presbyterian and Reformed Beview, for January, 1892. Astruc 
assumes two principal documents, which were used throughout, and are 
distinguished by the employment of Elohim and Jehovah respectively ; 
also ten minor documents relating chiefly to foreign nations, and not 
immediately affecting the Hebrew people, in which no name of God is 
found. These may have been of considerable extent, though Moses 
only had occasion to make one small extract from each. With these he 
classes likewise the story of Dinah, ch. xxxiv., and the extra document 
to account for the triple repetitions in vii. 18-20 and 21-23 in the nar- 
rative of the flood. The advantages which he claims for his hypothe- 
sis are that it will account for the alternation of the divine names as well 
as for the repetitions and displacements in the narrative. Occasional 
departures from the exact chronological order are in his view attributa- 
ble, not to any negligence on the part of Moses, but to the mistakes of 
transcribers. These documents were, as he supposes, originally ar- 
ranged in parallel columns after the manner of Origen's Hexapla ; but 
the transcribers, who copied them in one continuous text, sometimes 
inserted paragraphs in the wrong places. 

- Einleitung in das Alte Testament, von Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. 
First edition, 1782 ; 4th edition, 1823. He steadfastly insists that 
Moses is the compiler of Genesis, and the author of the rest of the Pen- 
tateuch, some interpolations excepted. Gramberg, whose Libri Gene- 
seos secundum f ontes rite dignoscendos Adumbratio Nova was published 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 63 

1. The primary basis of this extraordinary hypothesis 
was found in the remarkable manner in which the divine 
names Elohim (the Hebrew term for God) and Jehovah 
are used, particularly in the earliest portions of Genesis, 
whole paragraphs and even long sections making almost 
exclusive use of one of these names, while the alternate 
sections make a similarly exclusive use of the other. 
Thus in Gen. i. 1-ii. 3, Elohim occurs in almost every 
verse, but no other name of God than this. But in ii. 
4-iii. 24, God is with few exceptions called Jehovah 
Elohim, and in ch. iv. Jehovah. Then in ch. v. we find 
Elohim again ; in vi. 1-8, Jehovah, and in the rest of ch. 
vi., Elohim, and so on. This singular alternation was 
remarked upon by some of the early Christian fathers, 1 
who offered an explanation founded upon the Greek and 
Latin equivalents of these names, but which is not ap- 
plicable to the Hebrew terms themselves. Astruc's as- 
sumption was that it was due to the peculiar style of 
different writers, one of whom was in the habit of using 
Elohim, and another in the habit of using Jehovah, when 
speaking of God. All those paragraphs and sections 
which exclusively or predominantly employ the name 
Elohim were accordingly attributed to a writer denomi- 
nated from this circumstance the Elohist ; and when 
these paragraphs were singled out and put together, they 
constituted what was called the Elohist document. The 
other writer was known as the Jehovist, and the sections 
attributed to him made up the Jehovist document. It 

in 1828, substitutes for this faithful compiler an unknown Redactor, 
who in combining the Elohist and Jehovist makes frequent changes and 
additions of his own. 

1 Thus Tertullian adv. Hermogenem, ch. 3, remarks that the Most 
High is simply called " God" until the world was made, and his intel- 
gent creature, man, over whom he had dominion, after which he is 
likewise called " LORD. " See also Augustin, De Genesi ad Literam, 
viii. 11. 



64 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

was accordingly held that Genesis consisted of sections 
taken alternately from two distinct documents by authors 
of known proclivities, so far at least as their preference 
for or exclusive use of one or other of the divine names, 
and which existed and circulated in their separate state 
until they were combined as they are at present. This 
hypothesis is hence known as the document hypothesis, 
since it assumes as the sources of Genesis distinct and 
continuous documents, which are still traceable in the 
book from the beginning to the end. And the first ar- 
gument adduced in its support, as already stated, is the 
interchange of divine names, each of which is erected 
into the criterion of a separate document. 

2. A second argument was drawn from the alleged 
fact that when the Elohim sections are sundered out and 
put together, they form a regularly constructed and con- 
tinuous narrative without any apparent breaks or chasms, 
whence it is inferred that they originally constituted one 
document distinct from the intercalated Jehovah sections. 
The same thing was affirmed, though with more hesita- 
tion and less appearance of plausibility, of the Jehovah 
sections likewise ; when these are singled out and sev- 
ered from the passages containing the name Elohim, they 
form a tolerably well-connected document likewise. 

3. A third argument was drawn from parallel passages 
in the two documents. The same event, it is alleged, is 
in repeated instances found twice narrated in successive 
sections of Genesis, once in an Elohist section, and 
again with some modifications or variations in a Jehovist 
section. This is regarded as proof positive that Genesis 
is not one continuous narrative, but that it is made up 
from two different histories. The compiler instead of 
framing a new narrative which should comprehend all 
the particulars stated in both accounts, or blending the 
two accounts by incorporating sentences from one in the 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 65 

body of the other, has preserved both entire, each in its 
integrity and in its own proper form, by first giving the 
account of the matter as it was to be found in one docu- 
ment, and subsequently inserting the account found in the 
other. Thus Gen. i. 1-ii. 3 contains the account of the cre- 
ation as given by the Elohist ; but although this states how 
the world was made, and plants and animals and men were 
formed upon it, the Jehovist section, ii. 4, etc., introduces 
a fresh account of the making of the man and the wom- 
an, the production of trees from the ground, and the 
formation of the inferior animals. This repetition be- 
trays, it is said, that we here have before us not one ac- 
count of the creation by a single writer, but two separate 
accounts by different writers. So in the narrative of the 
flood ; there is first an account by the Jehovist, vi. 1-8, 
of the wickedness of man and of Jehovah's purpose to 
destroy the earth ; then follows, vi. 9-22, the Elohist's 
statement of the wickedness of man and God's purpose to 
destroy the earth, together with God's command to Noah 
to build the ark and go into it with his family, and take 
some of all living animals into it ; in vii. 1-5, the Jeho- 
vist tells that Jehovah commanded Noah to go with his 
family into the ark, and to take every variety of animals 
with him. 

4. A fourth argument is drawn from the diversity of 
style, diction, ideas, and aim which characterize these 
two documents. It is alleged that when these compo- 
nent parts of Genesis are separated and examined apart, 
each will be found to be characterized by all the marks 
which indicate diversity of origin and authorship. It is 
confidently affirmed that, wherever the Elohim sections 
occur throughout Genesis, they have certain peculiarities 
of diction and style which clearly distinguish them from 
the Jehovah sections ; and these again have their own 
distinctive characteristics. The preference for one di- 
5 



66 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

vine name above another, which has already been spoken 
of as a criterion, does not stand alone. There are be- 
sides numerous words and phrases that are currently 
used by the Elohist which the Jehovist never employs, 
and vice versa. Thus the Elohist, in ch. i., uses the 
phrase " beast of the earth," and speaks of the earth 
bringing forth plants, while the Jehovist, in ch. ii., says 
" beasts of the field " and " plant of the field." The Elo- 
hist, in ch. i., repeatedly uses the word " create " ; he 
speaks of God creating the heavens and the earth, creat- 
ing the whales, and creating man. The Jehovist, in ch. 
ii., speaks instead of Jehovah forming man and forming 
the beasts. The Elohist (ch. i.) speaks of man as male 
and female ; the Jehovist (ch. ii.) says instead the man 
and his wife. The style of the two writers is equally 
marked ; that of the Elohist is formal, verbose, and repe- 
titious ; that of the Jehovist is easy and flowing. In ch. 
i. the same stereotyped phrases recur again and again, 
and particulars are enumerated instead of including all 
under a general term. Thus ver. 25, " God made the 
beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their 
kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the 
earth after his kind." And ver. 27, " God created man 
in his own image, in the image of God created he him ; 
male and female created he them." The Elohist gives 
God's command to Noah in detail (vi. 18), " Thou shalt 
come into the ark ; thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and 
thy sons' wives with thee ; " the Jehovist simply says, 
(vii. 1), " Come thou and all thy house into the ark." 

Along with these peculiarities of diction and style, and 
corroborating the conclusion drawn from them, is the di- 
versity in the ideas and scope of the two writers. Thus 
the Jehovist makes frequent mention of altars and sacri- 
fices in the pre-Mosaic period; the Elohist is silent re- 
specting them until their establishment at Sinai. It is 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 67 

the Jeliovist who records the primeval sacrifice of Cain 
and Abel, of which the Elohist says nothing. The Elo- 
hist speaks, in v. 22, of Enoch walking with God, and vi. 
9, of Noah walking with God, but though he gives (ch. ix.) 
a detailed account of God's blessing Noah, and his cove- 
nant with him after he came out of the ark, he says noth- 
ing of Noah's sacrifice, which the Jehovist records (viii. 
20, etc). The divine direction to Noah to take animals 
into the ark is given by the Elohist only in general 
terms ; God bade him take two of every sort (vi. 19, etc.). 
But the Jehovist informs us more minutely of the dis- 
tinction of clean and unclean animals which then ex- 
isted, and that Jehovah bade Noah take two of each spe- 
cies of the latter, but seven of the former, vii. 2. 

These arguments, derived from the alternate use of the 
divine names, from the alleged continuity of each docu- 
ment taken separately, from parallel passages, and from 
the characteristic differences of the two writers, appeared 
to lend so much plausibility to the Document Hypothe- 
sis that it speedily rose to great celebrity, and was very 
widely adopted ; and many able and distinguished critics 
became its advocates. As at first propounded it did not 
conflict with the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. 
Its earliest defenders, so far from impugning the author- 
ship of Moses, were strenuous in maintaining it. So long 
as the hypothesis was confined to Genesis, to which it 
"was at first applied, there was no difficulty in assuming 
that Moses may have incorporated in his history of that 
early period these pre-existing documents in any way 
consistent with his truth and inspiration. 

It was not long, however, before it was discovered that 
the hypothesis was capable of being applied likewise to 
the remaining books of the Pentateuch. This extension 
of the hypothesis brought it for the first time into colli- 
sion with the traditional belief of the Mosaic authorship ; 



68 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

and this, with its various modifications, has since been one 
of the favorite and principal weapons of those who deny 
that it was written by Moses. If the entire Pentateuch 
is a compilation from pre-existing documents, it was 
plausibly inferred that it must be post-Mosaic. For the 
documents themselves, inasmuch as they contained the 
record of Moses's own times, could not have been older 
than the Mosaic age. And if the Pentateuch was sub- 
sequent to them, and framed out of them, it seemed nat- 
ural to refer it to a still later period ; though, it should 
be observed, that this by no means necessarily follows. 
Even if the composite character of the Pentateuch could 
be established on purely literary grounds, we might still 
suppose that the memoranda from which it was pre- 
pared were drawn up under Moses's direction and with 
his approval, and were either put together in their pres- 
ent form by himself, or at least that the completed work 
passed under his eye and received his sanction ; so that 
it would still be possible to vindicate its Mosaic origin 
and authority, unless indeed the primary documents 
themselves belong to a later time than that of Moses, 
which can never be proved. 

The critics who have held this hypothesis, however, 
commonly do regard them as post-Mosaic; and hence 
they claim that it affords ocular demonstration that the 
books traditionally ascribed to Moses are not his. And 
to corroborate this conclusion they appeal to Exodus vi. 
3, where God says to Moses, "I appeared unto Abraham, 
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my 
name Jehovah I was not known to them." They under- 
stand this to be a distinct declaration that the name Je- 
hovah was unknown to the patriarchs, being of later date 
than the time in which they lived, and that it first came 
into use in the days of Moses. It hence followed as a 
logical necessity that the Jehovist document, according to 






THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 69 

the testimony of this passage, was certainly not prior to 
the time of Moses, for it employs a name which had no 
existence previously. And it was plausibly urged that 
this document was probably post-Mosaic, for it is charge- 
able with the anachronism of putting into the mouths of 
the patriarchs the name Jehovah, which did not then 
exist. This was thought to be contradictory to the Elo- 
hist statement above cited, and to betray a writer be- 
longing to a period when the name Jehovah had become 
so familiar and so universal that its recent origin was 
forgotten, and he unconsciously transfers to patriarchal 
times a designation current in his own. 

This anachronism of the Jehovist led to the suspicion 
of others ; and since, as has already been stated, it is 
this document which makes mention of patriarchal altars 
and sacrifices that are never referred to by the Elohist, 
it was suspected that here again he had impro£)erly trans- 
ferred to the patriarchal age the usages of his own time, 
while the Elohist gave a more accurate representation of 
that early period as it really was. This was esteemed, if 
not a contradiction, yet a contrariety between the two 
accounts, a diversity in the mode of conceiving the pe- 
riod whose history they are recording, which reflects the 
different personality of the two writers, the views which 
they entertained, and the influences under which they 
had been trained. 

These diversities between the Jehovist and the Elo- 
hist took on more and more the character of contradic- 
tions, as the credit of the Jehovist for veracity and accu- 
racy was held in less and less esteem. Every superficial 
difficulty was made the pretext for fresh charges of 
anachronisms, inaccuracies, and contradictions. The 
text was tortured to bring forth difficulties where none 
appeared. An especially fruitful source was found in 
alleged parallel passages in the two documents. These 



70 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

were greatly multiplied by pressing into the service nar- 
rations of matters quite distinct, but which bore a general 
resemblance to each other. The points of resemblance were 
paraded in proof that the matters referred to were iden- 
tical ; and then the diversities in the two accounts were 
pointed out as so many contradictions between them, 
which betrayed the legendary and unreliable character of 
one or both the narratives. Thus because some of the 
descendants of Cain, whose genealogy is recorded by the 
Jehovist (Gen. iv. 17-22), bear the same or similar names 
with descendants of Seth recorded by theElohist (ch. v.), 
Enoch, Trad, Methusael, and Lamech of one table cor- 
responding to Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech of 
the other, it was concluded that these are only variants 
of the same identical genealogy, which one writer has at- 
tached to one of the sons of Adam, and the other to an- 
other ; and that every divergence in the two lists is a 
discrepancy involving an error on one side or on the 
other, if not in both. So in ch. xii. the Jehovist tells how 
Abram, apprehensive that the monarch of the country in 
which he was would be attracted by his wife's beauty, 
prevaricated by saying that she was his sister, what per- 
ils thence arose to both, and how they were finally extri- 
cated. In ch. xx. the Elohist relates a similar story of 
prevarication, peril, and deliverance. The same event, it 
is alleged, must be the basis of both accounts, but there 
is a hopeless contradiction between them. The former 
declares that the occurrence took place in Egypt, and 
that Pharaoh was a party to the transaction ; the latter 
transfers the scene to the land of the Philistines and the 
court of Abimelech. And to complicate the matter still 
further, the Jehovist gives yet another version of the 
same story in ch. xxvi., according to which it was not 
Abram but Isaac who thus declared his wife to be his 
sister, running an imminent hazard by so doing, but 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 71 

making a fortunate escape. According to the Elohist 
(xxi. 22-32), Abraham had a difficulty with Abimelech in 
respect to a well of water, which was amicably settled by 
a covenant, in memory of which he gave name to Beer- 
sheba. The Jehovist (xxvi. 17-33) relates a similar story 
of strife concerning wells, a visit by Abimelech, an agree- 
ment with him, and the naming of Beersheba in conse- 
quence ; but he says that it was not Abraham but Isaac 
who was concerned in it. 



FRAGMENT HYPOTHESIS. 

Meanwhile a more extreme disintegration found favor 
with Vater 1 (1805), Hartmann 3 (1831), and others, who 
advocated what is known as the Fragment Hypothesis. 
This may be fitly characterized as the Document Hypo- 
thesis run mad. It is a reductio ad absurdwn furnished 
by the more consistent and thorough-going application 
of the principles and methods of its predecessor. In- 
stead of two continuous documents pieced together, para- 
graph by paragraph, to constitute the Pentateuch as we 
now have it, each paragraph or section is now traced to 
a separate and independent source. The compiler was 
not limited to two writings covering alike the entire 

1 Cominentar iiber den Pentateuch von Johann Severin Vater. 1st 
and 2d Part, 1802 ; 3d Part, 1805. This embodies many of the Explan- 
atory Notes and Critical Remarks of Rev. Alexander Geddes, with 
whose views he is in entire accord. Vater finds that Genesis is com- 
posed of thirty- eight fragments, varying in length from four or five 
verses to several chapters The other books of the Pentateuch are 
similarly disintegrated. In fact, the legislation is the favorite domain 
of the Fragment Hypothesis, as the history furnishes the principal 
material for the Document Hypothesis. 

2 Historisch-kritische Forschungen tlber die Bildung, das Zeitalter 
und den Plan der fiinf Bticher Mose's, nebst einer beurtheilenden 
Einleitung und einer genauen Charakteristik der hebraischen Sagen 
und My then, von Anton Theodor Hartmann. 



72 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

period that he proposed to treat, but had before him 
all that he could gather of every sort relating to his sub- 
ject, some of which possibly were mere scraps, others of 
larger compass, some recording, it may be, but a single 
incident, others more comprehensive, and he adopted 
one passage from one, another from another, and so 
on throughout. Sometimes two or more fragments may 
have been taken from the same original work, but this 
cannot be positively affirmed. And it would be vain to 
attempt to inquire into the extent, character, and aim of 
the writings from which they were severally extracted. 
All that we know of them is derived from such portions 
as the compiler has seen fit to preserve. 

The arguments adduced in support of the Fragment 
Hypothesis were substantially identical with those which 
had been urged in favor of the Document Hypothesis. 
And assuming the soundness of those arguments, this is 
the inevitable consequence. Admit the legitimacy of 
this disintegrating process, and there is no limit to which 
it may not be carried at the pleasure of the operator ; 
and it might be added, there is no work to which it 
might not be applied. Any book in the Bible, or out of 
the Bible, could be sliced and splintered in the same way 
and by the same method of argument. Let a similarly 
minute and searching examination be instituted into the 
contents of any modern book. Let any one page be com- 
pared with any other, and every word, and form of ex- 
pression, and grammatical construction, and rhetorical 
figure in one that does not occur in the other be noted 
as difference of diction and style ; let every incident in 
one that has its counterpart in the other be paraded as/a 
parallel section evidencing diversity of origin and author- 
ship, and every conception in one which has not its 
counterpart in the other as establishing a diversity in 
the ideas of the authors of the two pages respectively; 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 73 

let every conclusion arrived at on one page that does not 
appear on the other argue different tendencies in the 
two writers, different aims with which, and different in- 
fluences under which, they severally wrote, and nothing 
would be easier, if this method of proof be allowed, than 
to demonstrate that each successive page came from a 
different pen. 

The very same process by which the Pentateuch is de- 
composed into documents, can with like facility divide 
these documents, and subdivide them, and then subdi- 
vide them again. Indeed the advocates of the Docu- 
ment Hypothesis may here be summoned as witnesses 
against themselves. They currently admit different 
Elohists and Jehovists, and successive variant editions 
of each document, and a whole school of priestly and 
Deuteronomic diaskeuasts and redactors, thus rivalling in 
their refinements the multitudinous array of the fragmen- 
tary critics. And in fact the extent to which either may 
go in this direction is determined by purely subjective 
considerations. The only limitation is that imposed 
by the taste or fancy of the critic. If the repetitions 
or parallel sections, alleged to be found in the Penta- 
teuch, require the assumption of distinct documents, 
like repetitions occurring in each individual document 
prove it to be composite. The very same sort of con- 
trarieties or contradictions which are made a pretext for 
sundering the Pentateuch, can furnish an equally plausi- 
ble reason for sundering each of the documents. And if 
certain criteria are regarded as characteristic of a given 
document, and their absence from sections attributed to 
the other is held to prove that they are by a different hand 
from the former, why does not the same rule apply to 
the numerous sections of the first-named document, from 
which its own so-called characteristic words and phrases 
are likewise absent ? 



74 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OE THE PENTATEUCH 

The titles and subscriptions attached to genealogies 
and legal sections supplied an additional argument, of 
which the advocates of the Fragment Hypothesis sought 
to avail themselves. Such titles as the following are 
prefixed to indicate the subject of the section that fol- 
lows : " These are the generations of the heavens and 
of the earth," Gen. ii. 4. " This is the book of the gen- 
erations of Adam," v. 1. " These are the names of the 
sons of Levi according to their generations," Ex. vi. 16. 
" This is the law of the trespass-offering," Lev. vii. 1. 
" This is the law of the sacrifice of peace-offerings," ver. 
11. " These are the journeys of the children of Israel," 
Num. xxxiii. 1. Or subscriptions are added at the close 
suggestive of the contents of the section that precedes, 
such as " These are the families of the sons of Noah 
after their generations in their nations," Gen. x. 32. 
"These be the sons of Leah," xlvi. 15. "These are the 
sons of Zilpah," ver. 18. " These are the sons of Rachel," 
ver. 22. " This is the law of the burnt-offering, of the 
meal-offering, and of the sin-offering," etc., Lev. vii. 37 3 
38. "This is the law of the plague of leprosy," etc., xiii. 
59. These indicate divisions in the subject-matter, and 
mark the beginning or end of paragraphs or sections, 
and contribute to clearness by brief statements of their 
general purport, but they do not prove that these sec- 
tions ever had a separate and independent existence 
apart from the book in which they are now found, or that 
different sections proceeded from different authors, any 
more than a like conclusion could be drawn from the 
books and chapters into which modern works are di- 
vided. 

The extravagance and absurdity of the Fragment 
Hypothesis could not long escape detection, for — 

1. It involves the assumption of a numerous body of 
writings regarding the Mosaic and ante-Mosaic periods 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 75 

of wliicli there is no other evidence, and which is ont of 
all proportion to the probabilities of the case. Every 
several paragraph or section is supposed to represent a 
distinct work, implying a literary activity and a fertility 
of authorship which is not only assumed on slender and 
inadequate grounds, but of which not another fragment 
survives, to which no allusion is made, whether in the 
Pentateuch itself or elsewhere, and not a hint or a trace 
is anywhere preserved of its ever having existed. 

2. A congeries of fragments borrowed from diverse 
quarters could only form a body of disconnected anec- 
dotes or a heterogeneous miscellany. It could not possi- 
bly result in the production of such a work as the Pen- 
tateuch, which is a coherent whole, possessing orderly 
arrangement in accordance with a well-devised plan, 
which is consistently carried out, with a continuous and 
connected narrative, with no abrupt transitions, and no 
such contrasts or discords as would inevitably arise from 
piecing together what was independently conceived and 
written by different persons at different times, and with 
no regard to mutual adjustment. As in oriental writings 
generally the successive portions are more loosely bound 
together in outward form than is customary in modern 
occidental style ; but the matter of the record is through- 
out continuous, and one constant aim is steadfastly pur- 
sued. The breaks and interruptions which are alleged 
to exist in the narrative, such as the failure to record in 
full the abode in Egypt, the private life of Moses, or the 
forty years' wandering in the wilderness, are no indica- 
tions of a lack of unity, but the reverse ; for they show 
with what tenacity the writer adhered to his proper 
theme, and excluded everything which did not belong- 
to it. 

3. Still further, the Pentateuch is not only possessed 
of a demonstrable unity of structure, which renders its 



76 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

fragmentary origin inconceivable, but there are through- 
out manifest allusions from one part to another, one sec- 
tion either referring in express terms to what. is con- 
tained in others, or implying their existence, being based 
upon those that precede and unintelligible without them, 
and presupposing those that follow. The minute exam- 
inations to which this very hypothesis has driven the 
friends of truth have shown that such explicit or tacit 
allusions are traceable everywhere ; and wherever they 
occur they make it clear that the writer must have been 
cognizant of the paragraphs alluded to, and have felt at 
liberty to assume that his readers were acquainted with 
them likewise. Of course this is quite inconsistent with 
the notion that each of these paragraphs came from a 
different source, and was written independently of the 
rest. 

It was refuted by Ewald 1 in his earliest publication, 
which still deserves careful study, and still more thor- 
oughly by F. H. Eanke. 2 



SUPPLEMENT HYPOTHESIS. 

Eepelled by the inconsistencies and incongruities of 
the Fragment Hypothesis, Bleek, Tuch, Stahelin, De 
Wette, Knobel 3 and others advocated what is known as 

1 Die Composition der Genesis kritisch Untersucht, von Dr. H. A. 
Ewald, 1823. 

' 2 Untersuchungen fiber den Pentateuch, von Dr. Friedrich Heinrich 
Ranke, Pfarrer. Vol. i., 1834; Vol. ii., 1840. 

3 The matured views of Bleek are given in the posthumous publica- 
tion, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1860. In his opinion, "after 
Ex. vi. 2-8, the determination of Elohistic constituents, if not impos- 
sible, is incomparably more difficult and uncertain than in the preceding 
history." 4th Edit., p. 92. He maintained that there was much in the 
Pentateuch that was genuinely Mosaic, and especially that many of the 
laws proceeded from Moses in the form in which they are there pre- 
served, and were committed to writing by Moses himself, or at least in 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 77 

the Supplement Hypothesis. This . is a modification of 
the Documentary, not on the side of a still further and in- 
definite division, but on the opposite side of a closer 
union. It was consequently a reaction in the right direc- 
tion ; a confession that what had been sundered without 
limit, as though its several parts were void of all coher- 
ence, really do belong together ; it is an admission, so 
far as it goes, of the cogency of the arguments, by which 
the various parts of the Pentateuch can be shown to be 
linked together. 

The Supplement Hypothesis retained the Elohist and 
the Jehovist of the older theory ; but, instead of making 
them the authors of distinct and independent documents, 
which were subsequently combined and pieced together 
by a different hand, it supposed that the Elohist first pre- 
pared his treatise, which lies at the basis throughout of 
the Pentateuch, and constitutes its groundwork. The 
Jehovist, who lived later, undertook to prepare an en- 
larged edition of this older history. He accordingly re- 
tained all that was in the earlier work, preserving its 
form and language, only introducing into it and incor- 

tlie Mosaic age. Kommentar liber die Genesis, von Dr. Friedrich 
Tuch, 183S. Kritische Untersucliungen iiber den Pentateuch, die 
Biicher Josua, Richter, Samuels und der Konige, von J. J. Stahelin, 
1843. Stahelin is peculiar in beginning his literary analysis with the 
laws, and then applying the results to the historical portions of the Pen- 
tateuch and the Book of Joshua. De Wette, who at first seemed to 
waver between the Fragment and Document Hypothesis, finally fell in 
with the supplementary view. His latest views are given in the sixth 
edition of his Lehrbuch der Historisch-kritischen Einleitung, 1845. Die 
Genesis erklart von August Knobel, 1852. This was followed in suc- 
cession by commentaries on the remaining books of the Pentateuch and 
on Joshua. Knobel endeavored to remove the difficulty arising from the 
large number of passages in which the characteristics of the Elohist and 
Jehovist were blended, by assuming that they belonged to the Jehovist, 
who in them drew from two antecedent sources, which he denominated 
the Recktsbuch and the Kriegsbuch. It is the same difficulty that Hup- 
feld sought to relieve by his assumption of a second Elohist. 



78 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

porating with it sections of his own, supplying omissions, 
and amplifying what needed to be more fully stated, 
thus supplementing it by means of such materials as were 
within his reach, and making such additions as he es- 
teemed important. 

This form of the hypothesis not only provides, as the 
old document theory had done, for those evidences of 
unity which bind the various Elohim passages to one 
another, and also the various Jehovah passages. But it 
accounts still further for the fact, inexplicable on the 
document theory, that the Jehovah sections are related 
to the Elohim sections, presuppose them, or contain direct 
and explicit allusions to them. This is readily explained 
by the Supplement Hypothesis ; for not only would 
the Elohist and Jehovist be aware of what they had re- 
spectively written, or of what they intended to write in 
the course of their work, but in addition the Jehovist is 
supposed to have the treatise of the Elohist in his hands, 
to which all that he writes himself is merely supplement- 
al. It is quite natural for him, therefore, to make allu- 
sions to what the Elohist had written. But it is not so 
easy to account for the fact, which is also of repeated oc- 
currence, that the Elohim passages allude to or presup- 
pose the contents of Jehovah passages. Here the theory 
signally breaks down. For by the hypothesis the Elo- 
hist wrote first an independent production, without any 
knowledge of, and, of course, without the possibility of 
making any reference to the additions which the Jeho- 
vist was subsequently to make. 

. Another halting-place in this hypothesis was the im- 
possibility of making out any consistent view of the rela- 
tion in which the Jehovist stood to the antecedent labors 
of the Elohist. The great proof, which was insisted upon, 
of the existence of the Jehovist as distinct from the Elo- 
hist, and supplementing the treatise of the latter, lay in 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 79 

the diversity of style and thought which are alleged to 
characterize these two classes of sections respectively. 
Hence it was necessary to assume that the Jehovist faith- 
fully retained the language of the Elohim document un- 
altered, and that his own peculiarities were limited to the 
sections which he introduced himself, and that there they 
were exhibited freely and without reserve. It is fre- 
quently the case, however, that the ideas or diction which 
have been represented to belong to one of these classes 
of sections are found likewise in the other class. Thus, 
Elohim passages are found to contain those words and 
phrases which have been alleged to characterize the Jeho- 
vist, and to contain ideas and statements which are said 
to be peculiarly Jehovistic. Here it is necessary to affirm 
that the Jehovist, instead of faithfully transcribing the 
Elohim document, has altered its language and inserted 
expressions or ideas of his own. Again, Jehovah pas- 
sages are found in which those characteristics of style 
and thought appear which are elsewhere claimed as 
peculiar to the Elohist. This is explained by saying 
that the Jehovist in such cases has imitated the style or 
adopted the ideas of the Elohist, and has sought to make 
his own additions conform as far as possible to the char- 
acteristic style of the work which he is supplementing. 
Again, while it is alleged that the Elohim and Jehovah 
passages are for the most part clearly distinguishable, 
there are instances in which it is difficult, if not impos- 
sible, to draw a sharp line of demarcation between con- 
tiguous Elohim and Jehovah passages, and to determine 
precisely where one ends and the other begins. Here 
the Jehovist is thought to have used art to cover up his 
additions. He has fitted them with such care and skill 
to the work of his predecessor that the point of junction 
cannot be discerned, and it has been made to look like 
one continuous composition. Instead of allowing, as in 



80 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

other instances, his insertions to remain visibly distinct 
from the original document, he has acted as if he desired 
to confuse his additions with the pre-existing work, and 
to make their separation impossible. 

Now, apart from the fact that these attempted explana- 
tions of phenomena at variance with the primary hy- 
pothesis are merely shifts and subterfuges to evade the 
difficulty which they create, and that this is bringing 
unproved hypotheses to support a hypothesis, every 
fresh addition making the superstructure weaker instead 
of confirming it, the view which is thus presented of the 
Jehovist is inconsistent with itself. At one time we 
must suppose him to allow the most obvious diversity of 
style and ideas between the Elohist sections and his own 
without the slightest concern or any attempt at producing 
conformity; at others he modifies the language of the 
Elohist, or carefully copies him in the sections which he 
adds himself in order to effect this conformity, though 
no special motive can be assigned for this difference in 
his conduct. He sometimes leaves his additions uncon- 
nected with the original work which he is supplement- 
ing ; at other times he weaves them in so adroitly as to 
create the appearance of continuity, and this again with- 
out any assignable motive. A hypothetical personage, 
who has to be represented by turns as artless and artful, 
as an honest reporter and a designing interpolator, as 
skilful and a bungler, as greatly concerned about a con- 
formity of style and thought in some passages, of which 
he is wholly regardless in others, and of whose existence 
we have no other evidence than that afforded by these 
contradictory allegations respecting him, can scarcely be 
said to have his reality established thus. And a hy- 
pothesis which is reduced to the necessity of bolstering 
itself up in this way has not yet reached firm foot- 
ing. 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 81 

Kurtz furnished the best refutation in detail of the 
critical analysis adopted by the advocates of the Supple- 
ment Hypothesis. The unity and Mosaic authorship of 
Genesis were also ably defended by Drechsler, and that 
of the entire Pentateuch by Havernick and Keil. The 
most complete thesaurus in reply to objections is that of 
Hengstenberg, upon whom Welte is largely dependent. 1 



CEYSTALLIZATION HYPOTHESIS. 

The simplicity of the Supplement Hypothesis, which 
was its chief recommendation, proved inadequate to re- 
lieve the complications which beset the path of the divi- 
sive critics. Attempts to remedy these inconveniences 
were accordingly made in different lines by Ewald and 
by Hupfeld, both of whom, but particularly the latter, 
contributed to smooth the way for their successors. 
Ewald's maiden publication, in 1823, was directed against 
the extreme disintegration of the Fragment Hypothesis. 

1 Beitrage zur Vertheidigung und Begnindung der Einheit des Pen- 
tateuches, von Job. Heinr. Kurtz, Erster Beitrag, Nachweis der Einheit 
von Gen. i.-iv., 1844. This preliminary essay was followed in 1846 by 
his complete and masterly treatise Die Einheit der Genesis. Unfort- 
unately Kurtz was subsequently induced to yield the position, which 
he had so successfully maintained, in his Geschichte des Alten Bundes, 
and to admit that the Pentateuch did not receive its final form until 
the generation succeeding that of Moses. Die Einheit und Aechtheit 
der Genesis von Dr. Moritz Drechsler, 1838. Handbuch der historisch- 
kritischen Einleitung in das Alte Testament, von H. A. Ch. Havernick, 
Part I., Section 2, 1837. Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Ein- 
leitung in die kanonischen Schriften des Alten Testamentes, von 
Karl Friedrich Keil, 1853. Die Authentie des Pentateuches erwiesen 
von Ernst Wilheim Hengstenberg, vol. i., 1836 ; vol. ii., 1839. Nach- 
mosaisches im Pentateuch, beleuchtet von Dr. Benedikt Welte, 1841. 
Also his important additions and corrections to Herbst's Einleitung, 
which he edited, and of which the first division of the second part, con- 
taining the Introduction to the Pentateuch, appeared in 1842. 



82 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

His own scheme, proposed twenty years later, 1 lias been 
appropriately called the Crystallization Hypothesis. 
This is a modification of the Supplementary by increasing 
the number engaged in supplementing from one to a series 
successively operating at distinct periods. The nucleus, 
or most ancient portion of the Pentateuch, in his opinion, 
consisted of the remnants of four primitive treatises now 
existing only in fragments embedded in the various 
strata which were subsequently accumulated around 
them. This was followed in the second place by what 
he calls the Book of the Origins, and this by what he 
denominates the third, fourth, and fifth prophetic nar- 
rators, each of whom in succession added his accretion to 
what had been previously recorded, and the last of whom 
worked over all that preceded, together with his own ad- 
ditions and alterations, into one continuous work. Then 
the Deuteronomist wrote Deuteronomy, which was first 
issued as an independent publication, but was sub- 
sequently incorporated with the work of his predeces- 
sors. And thus the Pentateuch, or rather the Hexateuch, 
for the Pentateuch and Joshua were regarded by him, as 
by the majority of advanced modern critics generally, as 
one work — thus the Hexateuch slowly grew to its present 
dimensions, a vast conglomerate, including these various 
accessions made in the course of many centuries. 



MODIFIED DOCUMENT HYPOTHESIS. 

Hupf eld 2 undertook to remove the obstacles, which 
blocked the way of the Supplement Hypothesis, in a 

1 Heinricli Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel bis Christus, vol. i. , p. 
60 sqq. 1843. 

2 Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammeusetzung von 
neuem untersucht, von D. Hermann Hupfeld, 1853. The existence of a 
second Elohist had been maintained long before, and a partition made 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 83 

different manner ; not by introducing fresh supplements, 
but by abandoning the supplementing process altogether, 
and falling back upon the Document Hypothesis, of which 
he proposed an important modification. He aimed 
chiefly to establish two things : First, that the Jehovist 
sections were not disconnected additions to a pre-exist- 
ing document, but possessed a continuity and indepen- 
dence, which shows that they must have constituted a 
separately existing document. In order to this he at- 
tempted to bridge over the breaks and chasms by the aid 
of scattered clauses arbitrarily sundered from their con- 
text in intervening Elohim sections, and thus made a 
shift to preserve a scanty semblance of continuity. In 
the second place, he maintained the composite character 
of the Elohist sections, and that they constituted not one 
but two documents. The troublesome passages, which 
corresponded neither with the characteristics of the Elo- 
hist nor the Jehovist, but appeared to combine them both, 
were alleged to be the product of a third writer, who 
while he used the name Elohim had the diction and other 
peculiarities of the Jehovist, and whom he accordingly 
called the second Elohist. Upon this scheme there were 
three independent documents ; that of the first Elohist, 
the second Elohist, and the Jehovist. And these were 
put together in their present form by a redactor who 
allowed himself the liberty of inserting, retrenching, 

on this basis by Ilgen in Die Urkunden des ersfcen Buchs von Moses in 
ihrer Urgestalt, 1798 ; but it met no approval at the time. Eduard 
Boehmer, in Das Brste Buch der Thora, adopted the scheme of Hupfeld, 
though differing materially in many points in the details of the analysis. 
E. Schrader, in editing the eighth edition of De Wette's Introduction, in 
1869, follows the same general scheme, with some modifications of the 
analysis. He designates the authors of the documents as the Annal- 
istic, the Theocratic, and the Prophetic Narrators, corresponding sever- 
ally to the first and second Elohists and the Jehovist of Hupfeld's no- 
menclature. 



84 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

modifying, transposing, and combining at his own pleas- 
ure. All references from one document to the contents 
of another, and in general any phenomena that conflict 
with the requirements of the hypothesis, are ascribed to 
the redactor. 

There are several halting-places in this scheme of Hup- 
feld. (1) One is that the creation of a second Elohist 
destroys the continuity and completeness of the first. 
The second Elohist is supposed to begin abruptly with 
the twentieth chapter of Genesis. From that point on- 
ward to the end of the book, with the exception of ch. 
xxiii. which records the death and burial of Sarah, the 
great body of the Elohim passages are given to the second 
Elohist, and nothing reserved for the first but occasional 
disconnected scraps, which never could have formed a 
separate and independent record, and which, moreover, 
are linked with and imply much that is assigned to the 
other documents. So that it is necessary to assume that 
this document once contained the very matter which has 
been sundered from it. These scattered points simply 
outline the history, apart from which they have no value 
and no meaning. Severed from the body of the narra- 
tive to which they are attached they are an empty frame 
without contents. This frame only exists for the sake of 
the historical material, to which it is adjusted and indis- 
solubly belongs. 

(2) It is also a suspicious circumstance that the first 
Elohist breaks off almost entirely so near the point where 
the second Elohist begins. All Elohist passages before 
Gen. xx. are given to the first Elohist ; all after that, with 
trifling exceptions, to the second Elohist. This looks 
more like the severance of what was once continuous, 
than the disentangling of documents once separate which 
the redactor had worked together section by section in 
compiling his history. 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 85 

(3) Another suspicious circumstance is the intricate 
manner in which the Jehovist and second Elohist are 
thought to be combined. In many passages they are so 
intimately blended that they cannot be separated. And 
in general it is admitted to be impossible to establish 
any clearly defined criteria of language, style, or thought 
between them. This has the appearance of a factitious 
division of what is really the product of a single writer. 
There is no reason of any moment, whether in the dic- 
tion or in the matter, for assuming that the Jehovist and 
the second Elohist were distinct writers. 

(4) It is indeed claimed that the first Elohist is 
clearly distinguishable in diction and in matter from the 
Jehovist and the second Elohist. But there are several 
considerations which quite destroy the force of the 
argument for distinct documents from this source, a. If 
the Elohim sections prior to Gen. xx. are thought 
to have a diction different from that of the Jehovist; 
and the great body of the Elohim sections after Gen. xx. 
have a diction confessedly indistinguishable from that 
of the Jehovist, the presumption certainly is that the 
difference alleged in the early chapters rests on too 
limited an induction ; and when the induction is carried 
further, it appears that the conclusion has been too hasty, 
and that no real difference exists, b. Again, the great 
bulk of the narrative of Genesis, so far as it concerns 
transactions in ordinary life, is divided between the 
Jehovist and the second Elohist. The first Elohist is 
limited to genealogies, legal sections, extraordinary 
events, such as the creation and flood, or mere isolated 
notices, as of births, deaths, ages, migrations, etc. That 
matter of a different description should call for the use 
of a different set of words, while in matter of the same 
sort like words are used is just what might be expected ; 
and there is no need of assuming different documents in 



86 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

order to account for it. c. Still further, when, as in Gen. 
xxxiv., a narrative is for special reasons assigned in part 
to the first Elohist, it is as impossible to distinguish its 
diction from that of the other documents as it elsewhere 
is to distinguish the diction of the second Elohist from 
that of the Jehovist ; and other grounds of distinction 
must be resorted to in order to effect a separation. All 
this makes it evident that the variant diction alleged is 
due to the difference in the matter and not to diversity 
of documents. 

(5) The function assigned to the redactor .assumes 
that he acts in the most capricious and inconsistent 
manner, more so even than the Jehovist of the Supple- 
ment Hypothesis. At times he is represented as scrupu- 
lously careful to preserve everything contained in his 
various sources, though it leads to needless and unmean- 
ing repetition ; at others he omits large and important 
sections, though the document from which they are 
dropped is thus reduced to a mutilated remnant. Where 
his sources disagree he sometimes retains the narrative 
of each unchanged, thus placing the whole case fairly 
before his readers ; at others he alters them into corre- 
spondence, which is hardly consistent with historical 
honesty. Variant narratives of the same event are some- 
times harmonized by combining them, thus confusing 
both ; sometimes they are mistaken for distinct and even 
widely separated events and related as such, an error 
which reflects upon his intelligence, since critics with 
the incomplete data which he has left them are able to 
correct it. He sometimes reproduces his sources just as 
he finds them; at others he alters their whole com- 
plexion by freely manipulating the text or making addi- 
tions of his own. Everything in diction, style, or ideas 
which is at variance with the requirements of the hypo- 
thesis, is laid to his account, and held to be due to his 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 87 

interference. The present text does not suit the hy- 
pothesis, therefore it must have been altered, and the 
redactor must have done it. 

It is evident how convenient it is to have a redactor 
always at hand to whom every miscarriage of the hypoth- 
esis can be attributed. But it is also evident that the 
frequent necessity for invoking his aid seriously weakens 
the cause which he is summoned to support. It is 
further evident that the suspicions cast upon the ac- 
curacy with which the redactor has transmitted the 
various texts which he had before him undermines the 
entire basis of the hypothesis. For it undertakes to es- 
tablish the existence of the so-called documents, and to 
discriminate between them, by verbal criteria, which are 
nullified if the original texts have been tampered with. 
And it is still further evident that the opposite traits of 
character impliedly ascribed to the redactor, the utterly 
capricious and irrational conduct imputed to him, and 
the wanton and aimless manipulation of his authorities, 
for which no motive can be imagined, tend to make this 
most important functionary an impossible conception. 

Both Ewald and Hupfeld were regarded at the time as 
having made a retrograde movement instead of an ad- 
vance, by falling back from the simplicity of the then 
dominant Supplement Hypothesis into a greater complex- 
ity than that of the original Document Hypothesis. The 
fact is, however, that the complexity inevitably grows, as 
the critics aim at greater precision, and enveavor to adapt 
their scheme more exactly to the phenomena with which 
they have to deal. The multiplication of machinery, which 
is necessary before all can work smoothly, so overloads 
their apparatus that it is in danger of breaking down by 
its own weight. They find themselves obliged to pile 
hypothesis upon hypothesis in order to relieve difficul- 
ties, and explain diversities, and account for irregulari- 



88 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

ties by subdivided documents, and successive recensions, 
and a series of redactors, and unfathered glosses, and 
variegated legal strata, and diaskeuasts in unlimited pro- 
fusion, until the whole thing reaches a state of confusion 
worse confounded, almost equivalent to that of the ex- 
ploded Fragment Hypothesis itself. 

For the sake of brevity the Pentateuchal documents 
are commonly denoted by symbols. Dr. Dillmann em- 
ploys the first four letters of the alphabet for the pur- 
pose ; he calls the Elohist A, the second Elohist B, the 
Jehovist C, and the Deuterononiist D. Others use the 
same symbols, but change the order of their application. 
In the nomenclature that is now most prevalent the 
term Elohist is applied exclusively to what used to be 
known as the second Elohist, and it is represented by E ; 
the Jehovist by J. J and E are alleged to have ema- 
nated from prophetic circles, J in the southern kingdom 
of Judah, and E in the northern kingdom of Israel. The 
second Elohist having been separated from what used to 
be known as the Elohist document, the remnant was by 
Wellhausen fancifully called Q, the initial of quatuor = 
4, because of the four covenants which it contains. 
Others prefer to designate it as P, the priestly writing, in 
distinction from the prophetic histories J and E. The 
critics further distinguish J 1 and J 2 , E * and E 2 , P 1 , P 2 
and P 3 , D 1 and D 2 , which represent different strata in 
these documents. Different Redactors are embraced 
under the general symbol E, viz., Ej who combined J 
and E, Ed who added D to JE, and Eh who completed 
the Hexateuch by combining P with JED. 

THE GROUNDS OF LITEEAEY PARTITION CONSIDERED. 

While these various hypotheses, which have thus arisen 
each on the ruins of its predecessor, are, as has been 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 89 

shown, individually encumbered with insuperable diffi- 
culties peculiar to each, the common arguments by which 
their advocates seek to establish them are insufficient 
and inconclusive. 

1. The first argument, as already stated, in defence of 
these several partition hypotheses, is drawn from the 
alternate employment of the divine names Elohim and 
Jehovah. It may be observed, however, that so far as 
there is any thing remarkable in the alternation of these 
names in the Pentateuch, it is confined almost entirely to 
the book of Genesis, and chiefly to the earlier portions 
of that book. It cannot, of course, be maintained that 
the same writer could not make use of both names. 
They are intermingled in various proportions in almost 
every book of the Bible. The occurrence of both in the 
same composition can of itself create no suspicion of its 
lack of unity. The special grounds which are relied 
upon in this case are, (1) the regularity of their alterna- 
tion in successive sections ; and (2) the testimony of 
Ex. vi. 3, which is understood to declare that the name 
Jehovah is not pre-Mosaic and was not in use in the 
days of the patriarchs, whence it is inferred that P, by 
whom this is recorded, systematically avoided the use of 
Jehovah prior to the time when God thus revealed him- 
self to Moses. 

As to the first of these points, remarkable as is the 
alternation of the divine names, particularly in the earlier 
chapters of Genesis, it does not coincide so precisely 
with sections or paragraphs as the advocates of these 
hypotheses would have us imagine ; for with all the care 
that they have taken in dividing these sections to suit 
their theory, each of these names is found repeatedly in 
sections mainly characterized by the other. The diver- 
gence between the hypothesis and the facts, on which it 
is professedly based, is so great that it cannot give a 



90 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

satisfactory explanation of them; and the arbitrary 
methods to which its advocates are forced to resort, in 
order to remove this divergence, are absolutely destruc- 
tive of the hypothesis itself, as can be readily shown. 

For the critics are obliged to play fast and loose with 
the text in a manner and to a degree which renders 
all their reasoning precarious. The alternation of the 
divine names Elohim and Jehovah is made by them the 
key of their whole position. This is the starting-point of 
the partition, and of the entire hypothesis of the separate 
documents. All the other criteria are supplementary to 
this ; they are worked out on this basis, and find in it 
whatever justification and proof of their validity they 
have. All hinges ultimately, therefore, on the exact trans- 
mission of these fundamental and determining words. 
At the outset the lines of demarcation are run exclu- 
sively by them ; and an error in these initial lines, by 
confusing the limits of the documents, would introduce 
error into their respective criteria as deduced from the 
inspection of these faulty passages. If there is anything 
that must be absolutely fixed and resolutely adhered to, 
if the document hypothesis is to stand, it is the accuracy 
of these divine names, which are the pillars on which the 
whole critical structure rests. And yet the critics, in re- 
peated instances, declare them to be incorrect or out of 
place. They are, in fact, forced by the perplexities of 
their situation thus to cut away the ground from beneath 
their own feet. The divine names are made the prime 
criteria for distinguishing the so-called documents. It is 
said that J (the Jehovist) characteristically uses Jehovah, 
E (the Elohist) Elohim, and P (the priestly writer) Elo- 
him as far as Ex. vi. 2, 3, and Jehovah thereafter. But 
the trouble is that with their utmost efforts the critics 
find it impossible to adjust the documents into conform- 
ity with this proposed scheme ; though their alleged cor- 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 91 

respondence with it is the sole ultimate warrant for their 
existence, the supreme criterion, on which all other cri- 
teria depend. In the first place, Elohim is repeatedly 
found along with Jehovah in sections attributed to J. 
Here the critics explain that the author of this document 
used both names as the occasion demanded. But this is 
putting the use of these names on an entirely different 
ground from that of the distinctive usage of separate 
writers. If J could use both of these names, and in so 
doing was governed by their inherent signification and 
by the appropriateness of each to the connection in which 
they are severally employed, why might not P and E do 
the same ? or why, in fact, is there any need for J, P, or 
E, or for any other than the one author to whom a uniform 
and well-accredited tradition attributes all that it has 
been proposed to parcel among these unknown and un- 
discoverable personages ? The appropriate use of these 
divine names, as ascertained from the acknowledged em- 
ployment of them by J, taken in connection with the ex- 
plicit statement of Ex. vi. 3, not in the perverted sense 
put upon it by the critics, but in its true signification, as 
determined by the numerous parallels in the book of Ex- 
odus, and throughout the entire Old Testament, will ex- 
plain their alternation in Genesis in a satisfactory man- 
ner, which the hypothetical documents have not done, 
and cannot do. 

Again, Jehovah occurs repeatedly in sections attributed 
to P and E, where, by the hypothesis, only Elohim should 
be found. Every possible evasion is employed to get 
rid of these unwelcome facts. Where the facts are at 
variance with the hypothesis, the invariable assumption 
is that the hypothesis is right and the facts are wrong, 
and require correction. The redactor has for some un- 
imaginable reason been at fault. He has inserted a verse, 
or a clause, or simply the unsuitable divine name of his 



92 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

own motion, without there being anything in the original 
text that corresponded to it ; or he has erased the divine 
name that was in the text, and substituted another for it ; 
or he has mixed two texts by inserting into the body of 
one document a clause supposed to be taken from another. 
And thus the attempt is made to bolster up the hypoth- 
esis by an inference drawn from the hypothesis. And 
the effect is to unsettle the text at those crucial points 
where accuracy and certainty are essential to the validity 
of the hypothesis, not to speak of the corollaries dedu- 
cible from it. 

Elohim occurs inconveniently for the critics in Gen. 
vii. 9 ; hence Kautzsch claims that it must have been 
originally Jehovah, while Dillmann insists that vs. 8, 9 
were inserted by R (the redactor). The critics wish to 
make it appear that two accounts of the flood, by P and 
J respectively, have been blended in the existing text ; 
and that vs. 7-9 is J's account, and vs. 13-16 that by 
P. But unfortunately for them, this is blocked by the 
occurrence in each one of the verses assigned to J, of ex- 
pressions foreign to J and peculiar to P ; and to cap the 
climax, the divine name is not J's but P's. The repe- 
tition cannot, therefore, be wrested into an indication of 
a duplicate narrative, but simply, as its language clearly 
shows, emphasizes the fact that the entry into the ark 
was made on the self-same day that the flood began. 

" And Jehovah shut him in " (vii. 16b), occurs in the 
midst of a P paragraph ; hence it is alleged that this sol- 
itary clause has been inserted from a supposed parallel 
narrative by J. But this overlooks the significant and 
evidently intended contrast of the two divine names in 
this verse, a significance to which Delitzsch calls atten- 
tion, thus discrediting the basis of the critical analysis, 
which he nevertheless accepts. Animals of every species 
went into the ark, as Elohim, the God of creation and 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 93 

providence directed, mindful of the preservation of what 
he had made ; Jehovah, the guardian of his people, shut 
Noah in. 

In xiv. 22, Jehovah occurs not in a J section, and is 
declared spurious for that reason ; though it is the name 
of God as known to Abram, in distinction from him as 
he was known to Melchizedek (ver. 19). 

Ch. xvii. is assigned to P because of the exclusive use 
of Elohim in it after ver. 1 ; hence it is claimed that Je- 
hovah in ver. 1 is an error for Elohim, notwithstanding 
the regular recurrence of Jehovah in all that preceded 
since the call of Abram (xii. 1), the identity of the phrase 
with xii. 7 ; xviii. 1, and the obvious requirements of this 
passage. Jehovah, the God of Abram, here reveals him- 
self as God Almighty and Elohim, to signalize his power 
to accomplish what nature could not effect, and to pledge 
the immediate fulfilment of the long-delayed promise. 

Ch. xx. records the affair with Abimelech, and the 
name of God is for this reason Elohim, until the last 
verse, where Jehovah's interference for the protection of 
Sarah is spoken of. The significance of this change of 
names is lost upon the critics, who assign the chapter to 
E because of Elohim, and then can account for Jehovah 
in no other way than by imputing ver. 18 to R. 

In xxi. 1, 2, there is a curious specimen of critical dis- 
section. Each verse is split in two, and one sentence 
fashioned out of the two first halves, and another out of 
the two second halves. The critical necessity for this 
grows out of the need of finding the birth of Isaac in 
both J and P. The alleged equivalence of the two 
clauses in ver. 1 is made a pretext for sundering them, 
and assigning to J " And Jehovah visited Sarah, as he 
had said ; " and to P the rest of the verse, " And Jehovah 
did unto Sarah as he had spoken," which last is then 
filled out by ver. 2b, " at the set time of which Elohim 



94 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

had spoken to him." But as it is inadmissible for Jehovah 
to stand in a P clause (ver. lb), it is assumed that it must 
originally have been Elohim. This is all built upon the 
sand, however ; for ver. 1 does not contain two identical 
statements. The second is an advance upon the first, 
stating that the purpose of the visitation was to fulfil a 
promise ; and what that promise was is further stated 
in ver. 2. All is closely connected and progressive 
throughout ; and it cannot be rent asunder as the critics 
propose. Jehovah, the God of Abraham, visited Sarah, 
and fulfilled his word to her, and Sarah bare her son at 
the set time that Elohim, the mighty Creator, had said. 
The names are in every way appropriate as they stand. 1 

In Abimelech's interview with Abraham, resulting in 
the naming of Beersheba, the name of God is appropri- 
ately Elohim (xxi. 22, 23) ; but when Abraham wor- 
shipped there he called, with equal propriety, on the 
name of Jehovah (ver. 33). The critics, ignoring the true 
reason of the interchange of names, tell us that ver. 33 is 
a fragment of J inserted by R in a narrative of E. 

In ch. xxii. Elohim puts Abraham to the trial, the an- 
gel of Jehovah interposes and blesses him. The de- 
mand of the Creator for the surrender of the dearest and 
the best is supplemented by the God of grace and salva- 
tion, who approves and rewards the mental surrender, 
and in the substituted animal supplies for the time then 
present an accepted type of the true sacrifice. This ob- 
viously designed and significant change of names is lost 
upon the critics, who find only the unmeaning usage of 
distinct writers, and can only account for Moriah, 2 (ver. 

1 Kautsch seems to be alone in venturing to split xxxix. 3 and 5, in a 
similar manner, and giving the second clause in each verse to E, with 
its Jehovah converted into Elohim. 

2 A compound proper name with an abbreviated form of Jehovah as 
one of its constituents. 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 95 

2), or Jehovah (ver. 11), as textual errors, and for the re- 
peated occurrence of Jehovah subsequently by making 
vs. 14^18, an interpolation by K, or an insertion from J. 
But the alleged interpolation is plainly an essential part 
of the narrative ; the story of such a trial, so borne, is 
pointless without the words of commendation and bless- 
ing. 

Isaac's blessing of Esau (xxvii. 27, 28) is torn asunder 
because Jehovah in the first sentence is followed by Elo- 
him in the second. 

So Jacob's dream, in which he beholds the angels of 
Elohim (xxviii. 12), and Jehovah (ver. 13) ; although his 
waking (ver. 16) from the sleep into which he had fallen 
(vs. 11, 12) shows that these cannot be parted. Jacob's 
vow (vs. 20, 21) is arbitrarily amended by striking out 
" then shall Jehovah be my God," because of his previous 
mention of Elohim when referring to his general provi- 
dential benefits. 

The story of the birth of Leah's first four sons (xxix. 
31-35), and that of the fifth and sixth (xxx. 17-20), are 
traced to different documents notwithstanding their 
manifest connection, because Jehovah occurs in the 
former and Elohim in the latter. 

Elohim in xxxi. 50, in a so-called J paragraph, is for 
that reason summarily pronounced spurious. 

Since Elohim occurs in xxxiii. 5b, 11, these are de- 
clared to be isolated clauses from E in a J section. 

The battle with Amalek (Ex. xvii. 8-13) is assigned to 
E because of Elohim, ver. 9 ; but the direction to record 
it, the commemorative altar, and the oath of perpetual 
hostility to Amalek (vs. 14^16), which stand in a most in- 
timate relation to it, are held to be from another docu- 
ment, because of Jehovah. 

In Jethro's visit (Ex. xviii.) Elohim (eleven times) 
naturally preponderates in what is said by or to one not 



96 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

of the chosen race ; and yet Jehovah is used (six times) 
where there is specific allusion to the God of Israel. 
But each Jehovah clause must, according to the critics, 
have been inserted in E's narrative by E from an as- 
sumed parallel account by J. 

Ex. xix. is maiuly referred to E ; but the repeated oc- 
currence of Jehovah compels the critics to assume that 
E has in several instances substituted it for Elohim, and 
even made more serious changes in the text. 

Ex. xxiv. is divided between E and J ; but the division 
cannot be so made as to correspond with the divine 
names in the current text. 

No critic pretends to follow the indication of the di- 
vine names in dissecting Ex. xxxii. 

Dr. Harper, in the " Hebraica," vi. 1, p. 35, says of the 
critical analysis of Ex. i. 1-vii. 7, " the language is but 
a poor guide, owing probably to E's interference ; not 
even the names of the Deity are to be relied on implic- 
itly, being freely intermingled." And p. 47, on Ex. vii. 
8-xii. 51 : " In this section the name of the Deity is ex- 
clusively Jehovah, which must have been substituted by 
E in all the E passages." In the " Hebraica," vi. 4, p. 269, 
he confesses that Jehovah runs " all through E's material " 
in the section Num. x. 29-xvii. 28 (E. V. ver. 13) ; and p. 
287 complains in regard to Num. xx. 1-xxvii. 11, of "the 
unsatisfactory use of the names of the Deity ; Tahweh is 
the prevailing name, Elohim occurring but nine times in 
the entire section ; this is, however, more easily explained 
on the E hypothesis than by any other." That is to say, 
the use of the divine names runs athwart the critical hy- 
pothesis to such an extent as to be quite unsatisfactory to 
its advocates. And the easiest way out of the difficulty is 
to assume that E has altered the name wherever the 
exigencies of the hypothesis require such a supposition. 

For the striking significance of the divine names in the 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 97 

history of Balaam (Num. xxii.-xxiv.) the critics have no 
appreciation, but seek to resolve all by their mechanical 
rule of blended documents. The occurrence of Elohim 
four times in xxii. 2-21 is urged as determining it to 
belong to E ; but Jehovah also occurs four times, where 
it is assumed that the word was originally Elohim, but it 
has been changed by R. Jehovah predominates in vs. 
22-35 J, but Elohim is found in ver. 22, for which R is 
again held responsible. The next two chapters are di- 
vided between the same two documents, but with some 
uncertainty to which each should belong. Wellhausen 
assigns ch. xxiii. to J, and ch. xxiv. to E ; Dillniann re- 
verses it, giving ch. xxiii. to E, and ch. xxiv. to J. But 
however they dispose of them, the divine names will not 
suit, and R must be supposed to have manipulated them 
here again. 

The real facts are these. Balaam only once uses Elo- 
him (xxii. 38) ; and then it is to mark the contrast be- 
tween the divine and the merely human. Apart from 
this he invariably uses the divine name Jehovah, whether 
he is speaking to Balak's messengers (xxii. 8, 13, 18, 19), 
to Balak (xxiii. 3, 12, 26 ; xxiv. 13), or uttering his prophe- 
cies (xxiii. 8, 21 ; xxiv. 6). He thus indicates that it was 
Jehovah whom he professed to consult, and whose will he 
undertook to declare. And it was because of his sup- 
posed power with the God of Israel that Balak desired 
his aid. Hence Balak uses Jehovah in addressing 
Balaam (xxiii. 17 ; xxiv. 11) ; only once Elohim (xxiii. 27), 
as non-Israelites commonly do. When the writer speaks 
of God in connection with this heathen seer, he stead- 
fastly uses Elohim at the outset. Balaam regularly pro- 
poses to tell the messengers of Balak what Jehovah will 
say to him, but the writer with equal uniformity says 
that Elohim came to him, and spoke to him (xxii. 9, 10, 
12, 20, 22). He is not recognized as an accredited prophet 
7 



98 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

of Jehovali. But while it is only Elohim, the general 
term denoting the Deity, which is pat by the sacred 
writer in relation to Balaam considered as a heathen 
seer, it is the Angel of Jehovah who comes forth to con- 
front him on his unhallowed errand, and Jehovah the 
guardian and defender of Israel who constrains him to 
pronounce a blessing instead of a curse. Hence from 
xxii. 22 onward, wherever the writer speaks, he uses the 
name Jehovah, not only in the encounter by the way but 
after his arrival, as determining what he shall say. To 
this there are but two exceptions. In xxiii. 4, when Ba- 
laam had gone to look for auguries, " Elohim met him," 
reminding us that he was but a heathen seer still ; yet it 
was Jehovah (vs. 5, 16) who put the word in his mouth. 
In xxiv. 2, "the Spirit of Elohim came upon him," ex- 
presses the thought that he was divinely inspired, and 
spoke by an impulse from above and not from prompt- 
ings of his own ; but his conviction that it was Jehovah's 
purpose to bless Israel kept him from seeking auguries 
as at other times (ver. 1). The partition hypothesis ob- 
literates this nice discrimination entirely, and sees noth- 
ing but the unmeaning usage of different writers coupled 
with K's arbitrary disturbance of the text for no imagin- 
able reason. 

This rapid survey of a few prominent passages suffi- 
ciently shows the character of the evasions by which the 
critics seek to cover up the lack of correspondence be- 
tween their hypotheses and the textual phenomena of the 
divine names. This want of correspondence betrays it- 
self in numerous signal instances. The attempts to 
relieve it are based on arbitrary assumptions, which are 
mere inferences from the hypothesis which they are ad- 
duced to support. In this process passages which are 
inseparable are rent asunder, and in many cases the real 
significance of the divine names is ignored or marred. 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 99 

And as a further consequence the main point above in- 
sisted upon is fully established. The current hypothe- 
sis of the critics is built on minute verbal distinctions, 
which imply an accuracy and certainty of text which 
they themselves unsettle by their frequent assumptions 
of errors and of manipulations by the redactor. If he 
altered the divine names, and inserted or modified clauses 
containing them in the instances and to the extent alleged, 
who is to vouch that he has been more scrupulous else- 
where ? The hypothesis is self-destructive ; for it can 
only be defended by arguments which undermine its 
foundations. And even if it were not possible, as in 
fact it is, to account satisfactorily for the interchange of 
divine names on other grounds, the proof is ample that 
the hypothesis of distinct writers will not explain it. 

Here, however, the testimony of Ex. vi. 2, 3, is ad- 
duced to show that P carefully and designedly avoided 
the use of the name Jehovah in all that he had pre- 
viously written, but regularly employed this name from 
that place onward. The passage reads : " God spake 
unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah : and I ap- 
peared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as God 
Almighty ; but by my name Jehovah I was not known 
unto them." The critics interpret this to mean that the 
name Jehovah was then first revealed to Moses, and that 
it had not been in use in the time of the patriarchs. 
They hence regard all prior sections containing the 
name Jehovah as in conflict with this statement, espe- 
cially as Jehovah is used not only in the language of the 
writer himself, but when he is reporting the words of those 
who lived long before Moses's time. Such sections, it is 
said, imply a different belief as to the origin and use of 
this sacred name, and must, therefore, be attributed to 
another writer, who held that it was known from the 
earliest periods, and who has recorded his idea upon 



100 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

that subject (Gen. iv. 26) that men began to call upon 
the name of Jehovah in the days of Enosh. 

But the sense thus put upon Ex. vi. 3, is altogether in- 
admissible. For 

(1) It is plain, upon the critics' own hypothesis, that 
the redactor, to whom in their view the Pentateuch and 
Genesis owe their present form, did not so understand it. 
After recording the history of the patriarchs, in which 
free use is made of the name Jehovah, he is here sup- 
posed to introduce the statement, from the mouth of 
God himself, that they had never heard this name, and 
thus to have stultified himself completely. 

(2) It is equally plain that it could not have been so 
intended by the writer. The statement that God was not 
known by his name Jehovah unto the patriarchs is ex- 
plained by the repeated declaration that Israel (Ex. vi. 
7 ; x. 2 ; xvi. 12 ; xxix. 46), the Egyptians (vii. 5 ; xiv. 4, 18), 
and Pharaoh (vii. 17 ; viii. 6, 18 (E. V. 10, 22) ; ix. 14, 29, 
comp. v. 2) should know that he was Jehovah ; not that 
they should be told that this was his name, but that they 
should witness the manifestation of those attributes which 
the name denoted. That he was not so known by the 
patriarchs can only mean, therefore, that while tokens of 
God's almighty power had been vouchsafed to them, no 
such disclosure had been made of the perfections in- 
dicated by his name Jehovah as was now to be granted 
to their descendants. 

(3) The uniform usage of Scripture proves the same 
thing. A true apprehension of the divine perfections, 
and not a mere acquaintance with the word Jehovah, is 
the constant meaning of the phrase " to know the name 
of Jehovah " (1 Kin. viii. 43 ; Ps. ix. 11 (E. V. 10) ; xci. 14 ; 
Isa. Hi. 6 ; Ixiv. 1 (E. V. 2) ; Jer. xvi. 21 ; Ezek. xxxix. 6, 7). 

It is important to observe here precisely what these 
arguments prove, viz., that Ex. vi. 3, was not written with 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 101 

an antiquarian interest, nor from an antiquarian point of 
view. It does not concern itself about the history of the 
word Jehovah, and cannot with any fairness be regarded 
as affirming or denying anything about it. Its sole de- 
sign is to declare that Jehovah was about to manifest him- 
self in the character represented by this name as he had 
not done to the patriarchs. Since, then, the writer did 
not intend to assert that the word was unknown to Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, there is no reason why, in relating 
their history, he might not consistently introduce this 
word in language uttered by them or addressed to them. 

Neither, it should also be observed, was the patriarchal 
history written in the spirit of a verbal antiquary, so as 
to make a point of rigorously abstaining from employing 
any word not then in current use. Even if the name 
Jehovah were not in use prior to the days of Moses, the 
God of the patriarchs was the very same as Jehovah, and 
the writer might properly adopt the dialect of his own 
time in speaking of him for the purpose of asserting the 
identity of the God of Abraham with the God who ap- 
peared to Moses and who led Israel out of Egypt. It is 
customary to speak of the call of Abraham and of the 
conversion of Paul, though the patriarch's name was 
Abram when he was called, and the apostle's name was 
Saul at the time of his conversion. 

Whether the name Jehovah was ante-Mosaic is a legiti- 
mate subject of inquiry. But it is not answered cate- 
gorically in the negative by Ex. vi. 3, nor inferentially in 
the affirmative by the use of this word in the patriarchal 
history. That question lay out of the plane of the 
writer's thoughts in the one place as well as in the other, 
and no express utterance is made regarding it. Much 
less have contradictory answers been given to it. The 
inconsistency which the critics affirm does not exist. 
There is consequently no difficulty from this source in 



102 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

supposing that the author of Ex. vi. 3, may likewise have 
penned the Jehovist sections in Genesis. This passage, 
though one of the pillars of the partition hypothesis, 
really lends it no support. 

Neither does Gen. iv. 26 : " Then began men to call 
upon the name of Jehovah." This is understood by the 
critics to affirm that in the belief of J the name Jehovah 
came into use in the days of Enosh the son of Seth. 
This might seem to accord with Eve's use of Elohim (iv. 
25) at the birth of Seth, and in her conversation with the 
serpent (iii. 1-5), but does not agree with her mention of 
Jehovah (iv. 1) at the birth of Cain, long before the time 
of either Seth or Enosh. Reuss says that the writer here 
contradicts himself. Dillmann can only evade the diffi- 
culty by a transposition of the text. All which simply 
proves that their interpretation of iv. 26 is false. It fixes 
the origin not of the word Jehovah, but of the formal in- 
vocation of the Most High in public worship. 

If we may take a suggestion from Ex. vi. 3, it implies 
that different names of God have each their distinct and 
proper signification ; and this inherent signification of the 
terms must be taken into the account if any successful 
attempt is to be made to explain their usage. The me- 
chanical and superficial solution of two blended docu- 
ments offered by the critics will not answer. Ex. vi. 3, 
instead of contradicting the book of Genesis, affords the 
key to the phenomena which it presents. 

The derivation and primary signification of Elohim 
are in dispute ; according to some authorities the radical 
meaning is that of power, according to others it denotes 
one who is the object of fear and adoration. It is the 
general name for God, and is applied both to the true 
God and to pagan deities. Jehovah is not a common but 
a proper noun. It belongs to the true God alone and is 
his characteristic name, by which he is distinguished 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 103 

from all others, and by which he made himself known to 
Israel his chosen people. Accordingly Jehovah denotes 
specifically what God is in and to Israel ; Elohim what 
he is to other nations as well. That universal agency 
which is exercised in the world at large, and which is di- 
rected upon Israel and Gentiles alike, is, by Elohim, the 
God of creation and of providence. That special mani- 
festation of himself which is made to his own people is 
by Jehovah, the God of revelation and of redemption. 
The sacred writer uses one name or the other according 
as he contemplates God under one or the other point of 
view. Where others than those of the chosen race 
are the speakers, as Abimelech (Gen. xxi. 22, 23) or 
Pharaoh (xli. 38, 39), it is natural that they should say 
Elohim, unless they specifically refer to the God of the 
patriarchs (xxvi. 28), or of Israel (Ex. v. 2), when they 
will say Jehovah. In transactions between Abraham or 
his descendants and those of another race God may be 
spoken of under aspects common to them both, and the 
name Elohim be employed ; or he may be regarded under 
aspects specifically Israelitish and the name Jehovah be 
used. Again, as Elohim is the generic name for God as 
distinguished from beings of a different grade, it is the 
term proper to be used when God and man, the divine 
and the human, are contrasted, as Gen. xxx. 2 ; xxxii. 
28 ; xlv. 5, 7, 8 ; 1. 19, 20. 

Hengstenberg 1 maintained that Elohim denotes a lower 
and Jehovah a higher stage of the knowledge and appre- 
hension of God. The revelation of God advances from 
his disclosure as Elohim in the creation (Gen. i.) to his 
disclosure as Jehovah in his covenant with Israel at 
Sinai ; and in the interval between these two extremes 
he may be designated by one name or the other, accord- 
ing to the conception which is before the mind of the 
! Die Autlieutie des Peutateuches, I., p. 286, etc. 



104 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

writer at the time. In any manifestation surpassing 
those which have preceded he may be called Jehovah ; 
or if respect is had to more glorious manifestations that 
are to follow, he may be called Elohim. The names ac- 
cording to this view are relatively employed to indicate 
higher or lower grades of God's manifestation of himself. 
There seems to be a measure of truth in this representa- 
tion of the matter, at least in its general outlines. The 
name Jehovah shines out conspicuously at three marked 
epochs, while in the intervals between them it is dimmed 
and but rarely appears. Jehovah is almost exclusively 
used in the account of our first parents, recording the 
initiating of God's kingdom on earth (ch. ii. 4-iv. 16), in 
its contrast with the material creation described in ch. i. ; 
in the lives of Abraham and Isaac, recording the setting 
apart of one among the families of mankind to found the 
chosen people of God in its contrast with the preceding 
universal degeneracy (Gen. xii.-xvii. 1 ; xxvi.) ; and God's 
revelation of himself to Moses as the deliverer and God 
of Israel, fulfilling the promises made to their fathers, in 
contrast with the antecedent period of waiting and for- 
eign residence and oppression. From this time onward 
Jehovah is the dominant name, since the theocratic re- 
lation was then fully established. The general corre- 
spondence of Hengstenberg's theory with the marked 
prevalence of the name Jehovah in the sections indicated, 
and its comparatively infrequent occurrence in the inter- 
vening portions of the history is manifest ; but there 
are exceptional cases, which cannot be accounted for on 
this sole principle, such as the occasional occurrence of 
Jehovah in the narrative of the flood, or in the lives of 
Jacob and Joseph, or of Elohim in Gen. xvii., which is 
one of the crowning passages in Abraham's life. Here 
Hengstenberg found himself obliged to resort to unsatis- 
factory and far-fetched explanations, which have brought 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 105 

his whole theory into unmerited discredit. These, how- 
ever, merely show, not that his principle was incorrect, 
but that it was partial and was in certain cases limited 
by other considerations, which must likewise be taken 
into the account in order to a just view of the whole 
subject. 

Kurtz 1 regards Elohim as denoting almighty power 
and Jehovah progressive self-manifestation, which, prop- 
erly understood and applied, furnishes the needed cor- 
rective to the view just considered. For a right concep- 
tion of the omnipotent energy of Elohim in creation and 
providence, and of Jehovah as unfolding, guiding, and 
sustaining his scheme of grace, and hence standing in a 
special relation to the chosen race and out of relation to 
Gentiles, to whom he has not made himself known and 
who are suffered to walk in their own ways, supplies the 
solution of the exceptional cases above referred to. But 
unfortunately Kurtz's antagonism to Hengstenberg pre- 
vented his combining his own suggestion with that of 
his predecessor. And his fondness for theorizing led 
him into unpractical refinements. Thus he explains 
Jehovah according to its derivation (Ex. iii. 14) to mean 
not the great I AM, the Being by way of eminence, the 
self-existent God, the source of all existence, but he who 
will become, is ever becoming, the self-developing God, 
an expression which taken strictly savors of the pan- 
theistic philosophy, for which Kurtz had no affinitry, 
though in this borrowing its terminology. He further 
explains Elohim to be the God of the beginning and of 
the end, and Jehovah the God of all that intervenes 
between these two extremes. Elohim is the creator and 
originator, imparting the initial potency, Jehovah con- 
ducts the development, and Elohim is the final judge 
whether the development has miscarried through the 
1 Einheit der Genesis, p. xlix. sqq. ; see also p. xxxi., note. 



106 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

abuse of human freedom, or has reached its proper end 
so that God is all in all. This might account for the 
predominance of Elohim in the flood which overwhelmed 
the guilty world ; but it was Jehovah who overthrew the 
flagitious cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and swept their 
abominations from the holy land. 

It should further be observed that while in certain 
cases one of the divine names is manifestly appropriate 
to the exclusion of the other, there are others in which 
either name might properly be used, and it is at the 
discretion of the writer which he will employ. When an 
event is capable of being viewed under a double aspect, 
either as belonging to the general scheme of God's uni- 
versal providence or as embraced within the adminis- 
tration of his plan of grace, either Elohim or Jehovah 
would be in place, and it depends upon the writer's con- 
ception at the time which he will employ. It is not 
necessary, therefore, in Genesis any more than in other 
books of the Bible, to be able to show that there was a 
necessity for using that divine name which is actually 
employed. It is sufficient to show, as can invariably be 
done, that the writer might properly use the name which 
he has actually chosen. This fully refutes the purely 
mechanical view, which overlooks the difference in the 
meaning and usage of these names, and their appropri- 
ateness to the connection in which they are found, and 
sees in their alternation nothing but the unmeaning 
peculiarities of style of different writers. 

II. The second argument in favor of the various par- 
tition hypotheses is drawn from the alleged fact that 
when the several sections or paragraphs, respectively 
assigned to the supposed writers separately, are put to- 
gether they form a continuous and connected whole. 
But— 

(1) The allegation is not well founded. It is only 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 107 

they who have a theory to support who can fail to see 
the chasms and abrupt transitions which are created by 
the partition, and which require in order to fill them the 
very passages which have been abstracted as belonging 
to another document. Thus in ch. i. P gives an account 
of the creation, and declares that God saw that everything 
that he had made was very good. And then in vi. 11, 12, 
without the slightest explanation, he suddenly announces 
that the earth was corrupt before God and was filled with 
violence so that he was determined to destroy it. This is 
quite inexplicable without the account of the fall, which 
has been sundered from it and given to J. In xix. 29 
P tells what happened when God destroyed the cities of 
the plain, without having before alluded to such a de- 
struction as having occurred ; the account of it is only to 
be found in J. In xxviii. 1-5 P tells that Isaac sent 
Jacob to Padan-aram to obtain a wife. But his entire 
residence there, eventful as it was, is in P an absolute 
blank. In sxxi. 18 he is said to be returning with goods 
and cattle, and in xxxv. 22-26 his twelve children are enu- 
merated, though no previous intimation had been given 
by P of his having either property or a family. How all 
this came about is related only in the other documents. 
Numerous gaps and chasms of this nature are found in 
each of the so-called documents, and are in every case 
created by the critical partition. The critics undertake 
to account for all such cases by saying that the redactor, 
having given the narrative from one of his sources, de- 
signedly omits what is contained in the others to avoid 
needless repetition. And yet in other cases we are told 
that he scrupulously retains the contents of his different 
sources, even though it leads to such superfluous repeti- 
tions as the double mention of Noah's entry into the ark 
and of various particulars connected with the flood 
as given both by J and P. They are besides perpetu- 



108 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

ally drawing inferences that imply the completeness of 
the documents, as when they attribute to P the notion 
that sacrifice was first introduced by Moses ; or when 
they interpret passages at variance with their context on 
the assumption that nothing had been joined with them 
like that from which the so-called critical analysis sepa- 
rates them. It is thus that the most of the alleged con- 
trarieties are created. In fact critical partition would 
lose its chief interest and importance in the eyes of its 
advocates if they were not allowed in this manner to alter 
and even revolutionize the meaning of the sacred text. 

(2) In many cases where continuity is claimed it is 
only accomplished by bridging evident gaps by means of 
scattered clauses sundered here and there from their 
proper connection, as is done for J in the account of the 
flood, and for P in the early history of Abraham. Or 
by alleging that the texts of two documents have been 
mixed, and because a paragraph attributed to one docu- 
ment contains occasional words or phrases which are 
assumed to be peculiar to another, inferring that these 
must have been taken from some imaginary parallel pas- 
sage in that document, which is necessary to make out 
its continuity, as in both J and E in the history of 
Joseph. 

(3) The apparent connection produced by bringing 
separated passages together and removing the interven- 
ing paragraphs or sections is altogether factitious. This 
may be so adroitly done that such passages will read con- 
tinuously as though there had been no omission. But 
any other book can be subjected to the same mode of 
treatment with a like result. Paragraphs of greater or 
less extent can be removed from any piece of writing 
whatever without the reader suspecting it, unless he is 
informed of the fact. 

(4) The proofs are abundant that each of the so-called 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 109 

documents either directly alludes to, or presupposes, what 
is contained in the others. This is, of course, quite incon- 
sistent with the hypothesis of their independent origin. 
The utmost pains have been taken by the critics to con- 
struct their documents so as to avoid this inter-relation ; 
but it has been impossible for them to prevent it alto- 
gether. Hence they are compelled to acknowledge their 
intimate connection. Kayser regards J as the redactor of 
JE ; Dillmann thinks that J possessed and often borrowed 
from E ; Julicher that P drew from JE. Both the same- 
ness of plan and the reciprocal relation of the narratives 
in all the so-called documents throughout the entire Pen- 
tateuchal history implies a dependence of one upon the 
other. This is admitted even by Wellhausen. 

(5) The critics are in the habit of playing fast and 
loose with the criterion of continuity, which at times is 
their sole or chief dependence, and at others is disre- 
garded entirely. While they profess to trace documents 
in a great measure by the connection of their several 
parts, they in numerous instances sunder what is most 
intimately bound together by necessary implications or 
express allusions, thus nullifying their own principal 
clew aDd invalidating their own conclusions. 

III. The third argument in favor of the partition hy- 
pothesis is drawn from parallel passages, which are al- 
leged to be separate accounts of the same thing taken 
from different documents. But — 

(1) In many instances what are claimed as parallel 
sections are not really such, but relate to matters quite 
distinct, which, however, bear some resemblance to each 
other. Thus, to refer to an instance previously adduced, 
there is nothing surprising in the fact that Abraham 
should on two occasions have been betrayed into a pre- 
varication respecting his wife. His having done so once 
in apprehended peril might easily incline him to do so 



110 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

again in similar circumstances. And that Isaac, when 
similarly situated, should imitate the error of his father, 
is not at all incredible. All history would be thrown 
into confusion, if a mere general resemblance in differ- 
ent events were to lead to their identification. How 
easy it would be for some future historian to claim that 
the accounts of the different battles at Bull Run, in the 
late war of the rebellion, all issuing in one way, were 
merely varying traditions of one and the same. To infer 
the identity of the facts from . the points of agreement in 
the narratives, and then the discrepancy in the state- 
ments regarding it from their disagreement in other 
points, which simply shows the facts to be distinct, is to 
construct a self-contradictory argument. Moreover, the 
assertion that what are recorded as distinct events are in 
reality valiant accounts of one and the same thing, is 
made without the semblance of proof or evidence of any 
sort. It is simply based on the prior assumption of the 
untrustworthiness of the sacred historian. His explicit 
statement is set aside as valueless beside the arbitrary 
conjecture of the critic. This is not a conclusion estab- 
lished by the divisive criticism, but is assumed in advance 
as a basis on which the divisive criticism is itself built. 
This reveals the unfriendly animus of the current critical 
analysis, which is inwrought in it, and inseparable from 
it, and is one of the determining influences by which it 
has been shaped. 

(2) Where the events referred to are the same, they 
are mentioned under a different aspect or adduced for a 
different purpose, which accounts for the repetition. 
Thus the renewed mention in Gen. ii. of the formation 
of man and the lower animals, which had already been 
spoken of in ch. i., is no proof that these are by separate 
writers ; for each chapter has a design of its own, which 
is steadfastly kept in view, the second being not parallel 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 111 

to, but the sequel of, the first. Noah's entry into the ark 
is twice recorded, without, however, any implication that 
two documents have here been drawn upon. After the 
general statement (vii. 7-9) that he went in with his fam- 
ily and various species of living things, the writer wishes 
to emphasize more exactly that he went in on the very 
same day that the flood began (vs. 13-16), and so restates 
it with that view. 

(3) In the simple style of Hebrew narrative it is usual 
to make a summary statement at the outset, which is 
then followed by a detailed account of the particulars in- 
cluded under it, and in recording the execution of a com- 
mand to restate the injunctions to which obedience is 
rendered. ^The critics seize upon such passages and en- 
deavor to turn them to the advantage of the partition 
hypothesis, but in so doing sunder what evidently 
belongs together. Thus in Gen. xxviii. 5, it is said that 
Isaac sent away Jacob and he went to Padan-aram, unto 
Laban, the brother of Rebekah. His actual journey is 
described in xxviii. 10-xxix. 13. The critics rend these 
asunder, giving the former to P and the latter to JE. In 
like manner xxxi. 18 is a summary statement of Jacob's 
leaving Padan-aram to go to Isaac, his father, unto the 
land of Canaan. This is followed by the details of his 
journey (xxxi. 20-xxxiii. 17), all which is given to JE, 
while the preliminary statement is assigned to P. So 
the account of Jacob's funeral (1. 4-11) is given to J, 
the summary statement of the burial (vs. 12, 13) to P. 
A like severance of what is closely related is made where 
directions are given and carried into effect. Thus Sarah 
proposes to Abraham that he should take Hagar as his 
wife, to which he consents (xvi. 2) ; this is given to J. 
But the carrying of this proposal into effect (ver. 3) is 
given to P. The Loed bids Moses tell the children of 
Israel how to observe the passover (Ex. xii. 2-20) ; this is 



112 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

given to P. In obedience to this direction Moses sum- 
mons the elders and explains the observance to them (vs. 
21-27) ; this is given to J. 

(4) "VVellhausen and Dillmami have pushed the parti- 
tion by means of alleged parallels to the most extrava- 
gant lengths by what they call doublets. This brings 
the subdivision down in many cases to minute para- 
graphs, or even single clauses. In a transaction which 
is accomplished by successive steps or stages, any one of 
these steps may be regarded as the doublet of another at 
the pleasure of the critic ; that is to say, they may be 
considered as variant statements of the same thing by a 
different writer and accordingly assigned to distinct doc- 
uments. Or any repetition of the same thought in va- 
ried language, by which the writer would emphasize his 
statement or more fully explain his meaning, may be 
reckoned a doublet, and the clauses partitioned accord- 
ingly. Thus in Gen. xxxvii. two things are recited which 
awakened the hatred of Joseph's brethren ; first (vs. 3, 
4), his father's partiality for him, secondly (vs. 5-11), his 
dreams, which he related to them. These statements 
supplement each other, and must be combined in order 
to a complete view of the grounds of their hostility. 
But they are converted into two different modes of ac- 
counting for the same thing, the former being the con- 
ception entertained by J, the latter that of E. Again, a 
doublet is found in the two clauses of xxi. 1, " The Loed 
visited Sarah as he had said, and the Loed did unto 
Sarah as he had spoken." These are reckoned equiva- 
lents, and are divided between J and P, whereas the 
second is additional to, and explanatory of, the meaning 
of the first. 

The alleged doublets, incoherences, and inconsisten- 
cies, by which the attempt is made to bolster up the 
weakness of other arguments for the original separate- 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 113 

ness of J and E, are capable of being set aside in detail. 
They are for the most part hypercritical cavilling, mag- 
nifying molehills into mountains, and measuring ancient 
oriental narratives by the rules of modern occidental 
discourse. 

IV. The fourth argument is based upon alleged differ- 
ences of diction, style, and ideas. The process by which 
these are ascertained is that of instituting at the begin- 
ning a careful comparison of two sections, supposed to 
be from different documents, such as the first two sec- 
tions of Genesis. All differences of thought and lan- 
guage between them are minutely noted, and the com- 
parison is then extended to contiguous sections, and so 
on, gradually and guardedly, to the remaining portions 
of the Pentateuch, all being assigned to one or the other 
document on the basis of the criteria already gathered, 
and which are constantly accumulating as the work pro- 
ceeds ; the utmost pains being taken so to adjust the 
sections that all references from one to the other shall 
fall within the limits of the same document, and that the 
intervening passages which are given to the other docu- 
ment shall not be missed. But notwithstanding the 
seeming plausibility of this method, and the apparent 
scientific caution and accuracy with which it is con- 
ducted, it is altogether fallacious. For — ■ 

(1) The argument is simply reasoning in a circle. 
The differences are first created and then argued from. 
The documents are first framed to correspond with cer- 
tain assumed characteristic differences, and then their 
correspondence with these characteristics is urged in 
proof of their objective reality. All paragraphs, clauses, 
and parts of clauses, in which a certain class of alleged 
criteria occur, are systematically assigned to one docu- 
ment, and those having another class of criteria are, 
with like regularity, assigned to another document ; and 



114 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

when the process is complete, all the criteria of one class 
are in one document, and those of the other class are in 
the other document, simply because the critic has put 
them there. The documents accord with the hypothesis 
because they have been constructed by the hypothesis. 

(2) The proofs relied upon for diversity of diction are 
factitious, and can be applied with like effect to any 
book of any author. All words in one of the so-called 
documents which do not chance to be found in the oth- 
ers are carefully gathered out and strung together in a 
formidable list. Any one treatise of an author can in 
this way equally be made to prove that any other of his 
treatises was not written by him, or any part of one to 
prove that the remaining portion came from another 
hand. That certain words which occur in one series of 
paragraphs or sections do not occur in another proves 
nothing unless it can be shown that the writer had oc- 
casion to use them. Especially is this the case when 
the words adduced are in familiar and common use, or 
are the only words suited to express a given idea ; these 
obviously cannot be classed as the peculium of any 
one writer. 1 Also when they are of infrequent occur- 
rence, and so give no indication of a writer's habitual 
usage, or are words belonging to one particular spe- 
cies of composition. It is not surprising that poetic 
words should not be found in a document from which 
poetic passages are systematically excluded ; or that 
legal words and phrases should be limited to the docu- 
ment to which the legal passages are regularly assigned ; 
or that words appropriate to ordinary narrative should 

1 My friend Professor McCurdy. of Toronto University, pertinently 
suggests in a private note that much of the critical argument from dic- 
tion would prove too much if it proved anything. If words of this de- 
scription furnish a criterion, it would imply not merely a diversity of 
writers, but writers using different dialects or languages. 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 115 

chiefly abound in those documents to which the bulk of 
such narrative is given. Since the entire ritual law is 
given to P, and the great body of the history, together 
with all the poetical passages, to JE, a corresponding- 
difference of diction and style must necessarily result 
from this diversity of theme, and of the character of the 
composition, without being by any means suggestive of a 
difference of writers. When the words alleged to be 
characteristic of one of the documents occur but rarely 
iu that document, and are absent from the great majority 
of its sections, this must, on the critical hypothesis, be 
regarded as accidental ; so may their absence from the 
sections of the other document be. 

It must also be remembered that a writer who has a 
reasonable command of language may vary his- expres- 
sions in conveying the same idea. It is not a safe as- 
sumption that he cannot use words or phrases in any 
place which he lias not used elsewhere. Thus Dillmann 
(" Die Biicher, Exodus und Leviticus," p. 619), argues 
that a peculiar diction is not always indicative of separate 
authorship. After saying that the passage of which he 
is speaking has some of the characteristics of J, but 
" much more that is unusual and peculiar," he adds, " The 
most of this nature may be accounted for partly by the 
poetic and oratorical style, and partly by the new and 
peculiar objects and ideas that were to be expressed, 
and it can scarcely suffice to justify the conclusion of an 
altogether peculiar writer, from whom we have nothing 
besides." 

(3) "When synonymous expressions are used to con- 
vey the same idea this does not justify the assumption 
that they have been taken from different documents, and 
that they severally represent the usage of distinct writ- 
ers. They are not to be explained in this superficial and 
mechanical manner. Synonyms are not usually exact 



118 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

counterparts. There is commonly a distinction, more or 
less clear, which may be observed between them, some 
slight difference in their meaning or their association, 
which governs their employment and leads to the use of 
one rather than another in particular connections. 

(4) The alleged criteria frequently conflict with each 
other, and with the criteria derived from the divine 
names. Words or phrases said to be characteristic of 
one writer meet in the same section, or even in the same 
sentence, with those that are said to characterize the 
other. In such cases the critics resort to various sub- 
terfuges to relieve the situation. Sometimes they admit 
that what has been considered characteristic of one docu- 
ment is found likewise in another, which is equivalent to 
a confession that it is not a distinctive criterion at all. 
At other times they claim that two texts have 'been 
mingled, and that expressions or clauses from one docu- 
ment have been interpolated in the other, whereas these 
blended criteria simply prove that the same writer freely 
uses both in the same connection. Again, at other times 
they claim that such passages belong originally to 
neither document, but are insertions by the redactor, 
who is always at hand to account for phenomena at vari- 
ance with the hypothesis, when no other mode of escape 
is possible. It is obviously possible by such devices to 
carry through any hypothesis, however preposterous. If 
all opposing phenomena can be set aside as interpola- 
tions, or as the work of the redactor, the most refractory 
texts can be tortured into accordance with the critic's 
arbitrary presuppositions. 

(5) The critic is engaged in solving an indeterminate 
equation. The line of partition depends upon the 
criteria, and the criteria depend upon the line of parti- 
tion ; and both of these are unknown quantities. Of 
necessity the work is purely hypothetical from first to 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 117 

last, and the liability to error increases with every step 
of the process. A mistake in the criteria will lead to a 
wrong partition, and this to further false criteria, and so 
on indefinitely ; and there is no sure method of correct- 
ing or even ascertaining the error. The critic resembles 
a traveller who without guide or compass is seeking to 
make his way through a trackless forest, so dense as to 
shut out the sight of the heavens. He will inevitably 
diverge from a straight course, and may gradually and 
imperceptibly be turned in the opposite direction from 
that in which he started. Or he may prove to be only a 
dreamer, whose beautiful creations are but airy phan- 
toms. 

(6) The complexity of the problem with which the 
critic has undertaken to deal becomes more obvious the 
further he proceeds. At the outset his work is compara- 
tively simple ; the fewer the criteria the more readily 
they are applied. By the aid of such ingenious devices 
as have already been indicated he makes his way 
through Genesis with tolerable ease. But in the middle 
books of the Pentateuch difficulties crowd upon him, as 
is shown by the wide divergence of the critics in their 
efforts to cope with them, and in the book of Joshua it 
becomes a veritable medley. It is the natural result of 
an attempt to apply criteria gathered elsewhere to fresh 
passages for which they have no affinity. Partitions are 
made which find no sanction in an unbiassed examina- 
tion of the passages themselves, and are merely forced 
upon them for the sake of consistency with a previously 
adopted scheme of division. This is repeatedly con- 
fessed by the critics themselves. Thus Wellhausen, 1 in 
beginning his discussion of Gen. xxxvii.-l. says : " The 
principal source for this last section of Genesis also is 

1 Jahrhiicher fiir Deutsche Theologie, 1876, p. 442, or in the sepa- 
rate reprint, Die Composition des Hexateuchs, p. 52. 



118 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

JE. It is to be presumed that this work, here as else- 
where, is compounded of J and E ; our former results 
constrain to this assumption, and would be shaken if this 
were not capable of proof." 

The various arguments urged in support of the divi- 
sive hypothesis in its different forms have now been suc- 
cessively examined and found wanting. The alternation 
of divine names can be otherwise explained,- and more- 
over it can only be brought into harmony with the parti- 
tion hypothesis by a free use of the redactor, and the 
assumption of repeated changes of the text. Ex. vi. 3 
has not the meaning that the critics attribute to it. The 
continuity of the documents is broken by serious chasms, 
or maintained by very questionable methods ; and it is 
necessary to assume in numerous instances that the 
documents originally contained paragraphs and sections 
similar to those which the critics have sundered from 
them. The alleged parallel passages are for the most 
part falsely assumed identifications of distinct events. 
And the diversity of diction, style, and ideas is made 
out by utterly fallacious and inconclusive methods. But 
while the attempted proof of lack of unity signally fails, 
the positive evidence of unity abides and never can be 
nullified. The great outstanding proof of it is the un- 
broken continuity of the history, the consistent plan 
upon which the whole is prepared, and the numerous 
cross-references, which bind it all together as the work 
of one mind. Separate and independent documents 
mechanically pieced together could no more produce 
such an appearance of unity as reigns throughout the 
Pentateuch than a faultless statue could be formed out 
of discordant fragments of dissimilar materials. 

The futility of the methods by which the Pentateuch 
has been parcelled into different documents may further 
be shown by the readiness with which they can be ap- 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 



119 



plied, and with equal success, to writings the unity of 
which is indisputable. The fact that a narrative can be 
so divided as to form from it two continuous narratives, 
is reckoned by the critics a demonstration of its compo- 
site character, and a proof that the parts into which it has 
been severed are the original sources from which it has 
been compounded. This may be tested by a couple of 
passages selected at random — the parables of The Prodi- 
gal Son and of The Good Samaritan. 



The Pkodigal Son, Luke xv. 11-32. 



11. A certain man had two 
sons : 12. and the younger of 
them said to his father, Father, 
give me the portion of thy sub- 
stance that falleth to me. . . . 
13. And not many days after the 
younger son gathered all to- 
gether, . . . and there he 
wasted his substance with riot- 
ous living. . . . 



14b. and he began to be in 
want. 



16b. And no man gave unto 
him. 

20. And he arose, and came to 
his father ; . . . and he ran, 
and fell on his neck, and kissed 
him. 21. And the son said un- ! 
to him, Father, I have sinned I 



B 



(A certain man had two sons :) 



12b. and he divided unto 
them his living. 

13b. And (one of them) took 
his journey into a far country. 
. . . 14. And when he had 
spent all, there arose a mighty 
famine in that country. . . . 
15. And he went and joined him- 
self to one of the citizens of that 
countiy ; and he sent him into 
his fields to feed swine. 16. And 
he would fain have been filled 
with the husks that the swine 
did eat. . . . 17. But when 
he came to himself he said, How 
many hired servants of my fath- 
er's have bread enough and to 
spare, and I perish here with 
hunger ! IS. I will arise and go 
to my father, and will say unto 



120 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 



against heaven, and in thy sight : 
I am no more worthy to be called 
thy son. 22. But the father said 
to his servants, Bring forth 
quickly the best robe, and put it 
on him ; and put a ring on his 
hand, and shoes on his feet: . . . 
24. for this my son was dead, 
and is alive again. . . . And 
they began to be merry. 25. 
Now his elder son was in the 
field : and as he came and drew 
nigh to the house, . . . 28. he 
was angry, and would not go in : 
and his father came out, and en- 
treated him. 29. But he an- 
swered and said to his father, Lo, 
these many years do I serve thee, 
and I never transgressed a com- 
mandment of thine : and yet 
thou never gavest me a kid, that 
I might make merry with my 
friends : 30. but when this thy 
son came, which hath devoured 
thy living with harlots, thou 
killedst for him the fatted calf. 
31. And he said unto him, Son, 
thou art ever with me, and all 
that is mine is thine. 32. But 
it was meet to make merry and 
be glad : for this thy brother 
was dead, and is alive again. 



B 



him, Father, I have sinned 
against heaven, and in thy sight : 
19. I am no more worthy to be 
called thy son : make me as one 
of thy hired servants. .■ . . 
20b. But while he was yet afar 
off, his father saw him, and was 
moved with compassion : . . . 
23. and (said) Bring the fatted 
calf, and kill it, and let us eat, 
and make merry. . . . 24b. he 
was lost, and is found. . . . 
25b. (And the other son) heard 
music and dancing. 26. And he 
called to him one of the ser- 
vants, and inquired what these 
things might be. 27. And he 
said unto him, Thy brother is 
come ; and thy father hath killed 
the fatted calf, because he hath 
received him safe and sound 
. . . 32b. and he was lost 
and is found. 



There are here two complete narratives, agreeing in 
some points, and disagreeing in others, and each has its 
special characteristics. The only deficiencies are en- 
closed in parentheses, and may be readily explained as 
omissions by the redactor in effecting the combination. A 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 121 

clause must be supplied at the beginning of B, a subject 
is wanting in ver. 13b, and ver. 25b, and the verb " said " 
is wanting in ver. 23. As these omissions occur exclu- 
sively in B, it may be inferred that the redactor placed A 
at the basis, and incorporated B into it with only such 
slight changes as were necessary to adapt it to this pur- 
pose. 

A and B agree that there were two sons, one of whom 
received a portion of his father's property, and by his 
own fault was reduced to great destitution, in consequence 
of which he returned penitently to his father, and ad- 
dressed him in language which is nearly identical in 
both accounts. The father received him with great ten- 
derness and demonstrations of joy, which attracted the 
attention of the other son. 

The differences are quite as striking as the points of 
agreement. A distinguishes the sons as elder and 
younger ; B makes no mention of their relative ages. In 
A the younger obtained his portion by solicitation, and 
the father retained the remainder in his own possession ; 
in B the father divided his property between both of his 
sons of his own motion. In A the prodigal remained in 
his father's neighborhood, and reduced himself to penury 
by riotous living ; in B he went to a distant country and 
spent all his property, but there is no intimation that he 
indulged in unseemly excesses. It would rather appear 
that he was injudicious ; and to crown his misfortunes 
there occurred a severe famine. His fault seems to have 
consisted in having gone so far away from his father and 
from the holy land, and in engaging in the unclean occu- 
pation of tending swine. In A the destitution seems to 
have been chiefly want of clothing ; in B want of food. 
Hence in A the father directed the best robe and ring and 
shoes to be brought for him ; in B the fatted calf was killed. 
In B the son came from a distant land, and the father saw 



122 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

him afar off ; in A he came from the neighborhood, and 
the father ran at once and fell on his neck and kissed 
him. In B he had been engaged in a menial occupation, 
and so bethought himself of his father's hired servants, 
and asked to be made a servant himself ; in A he had 
been living luxuriously, and while confessing his un- 
worthiness makes no request to be put on the footing of 
a servant. In A the father speaks of his son having been 
dead because of his profligate life ; in B of his having 
been lost because of his absence in a distant land. In A, 
but not in B, the other son was displeased at the recep- 
tion given to the prodigal. And here it would appear 
that B, has slightly altered the text. The elder son must 
have said to his father in A, " When this thy son came, 
which hath devoured thy substance with harlots, thou 
didst put on him the best robe." The redactor has here 
substituted the B word "living " 1 for " substance," which 
is used by A ; and with the view of making a better con- 
trast with " kid " he has introduced the B phrase, " thou 
killedst for him the fatted calf." 

The Good Samaritan, Luke x. 29-37. 



A 



B 



29. But he (the lawyer, ver. 
25) desiring to justify himself, 
said unto Jesus, And who is my 
neighbor ? 30. Jesus made an- 
swer and said, A certain man was 
going down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho ; . . . and they beat 
him, . . . leaving him half j 
dead. 31. And by chance a cer- 
tain priest was going down that \ * Omitted by R. ( ). 

1 No scholar will need to be informed that "living "ver. 13, has a 
different sense and represents a different word in the original from ' ' liv- 
ing," ver. 12. 



30b. And (a certain man) * fell 
among robbers, which both 
stripped him . . . and de- 
parted. . . . 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 



123 



way : and when he saw him, he 
passed by on the other side. . . . 

33. But a certain Samaritan, 
as he journeyed, came where he 
was : . . . 

34. and came to him, and 
bound up his wounds, pouring 
on them oil and wine, . . 
and took care of him. 



36 Which of these [three]*, 
thinkest thou, proved neighbor 
unto him? ... 37. And he 
said, He that showed mercy on 
him. 



Inserted by 



32. And [in like manner] * a 
Levite, [also] * when he came to 
the place, [and saw him, passed 
by on the other side.] * 

33b. and when he saw him, 
was moved with compassion. . . . 

34b. And he set him on his 
own beast, and brought him to 
an inn. ... 35. And on 
the morrow he took out two 
pence, and gave them to the 
host, and said, Take care of him ; 
and whatsoever thou spendest 
more, I, when I comeback again, 
will repay thee. 

37b. And Jesus said unto him 
. . . that fell among the rob- 
bers, . . . Go, and do thou 
likewise. 
E[ ]. 



Both, these narratives are complete ; only a subject 
must be supplied in B, ver. 30b, the omission of which 
was rendered necessary by its being combined with A. 
"Three" is substituted for "two "in A, ver. 36, for a 
like reason. R has tampered with the text and materi- 
ally altered the sense in ver. 32, from his desire to put the 
Levite on the same plane with the priest in ver. 31, the 
language of which he has borrowed ; the genuine text of 
B will be restored by omitting the insertions by B, which 
are included in brackets. He has likewise transposed a 
brief clause of B, in ver. 37b, and added it at the end of 
ver. 36. These changes naturally resulted from his mak- 
ing A the basis, and modifying what he has inserted 
from B into accordance with it. Hence the necessity of 
making it appear that it was not the Levite, but the 
Samaritan, who befriended the injured traveller, and that 



124 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

Jesus spoke not to the traveller, but to the lawyer. In 
all other respects the original texts of the two narratives 
remain unaltered. 

Both narratives agree that a man grievously abused 
by certain parties was treated with generous kindness by 
a stranger ; and that Jesus deduced a practical lesson 
from it. But they differ materially in details. 

A relates his story as a parable of Jesus in answer to 
a lawyer's question. B makes no mention of the lawyer 
or his question, but seems to be relating a real occur- 
rence. 

The spirit of the two is quite different. A is anti- 
Jewish, B pro-Jewish. In A the aggressors are Jews, 
people of Jerusalem or Jericho or both, and a priest piti- 
lessly leaves the sufferer to his fate ; while it is a Samar- 
itan, with whom the Jews were in perpetual feud, who 
takes pity on him. In B the aggressors are robbers, 
outlaws whose nationality is not defined, and it is a Le- 
vite who shows mercy. 

Both the maltreatment and the act of generosity are 
different. In A the sufferer is beaten and half killed, 
and needs to have his wounds bound up and liniments 
applied, which is done by his benefactor on the spot. 
In B he was stripped of all he had and left destitute, 
but no personal injury was inflicted ; accordingly he was 
taken to an inn, and his wants there provided for at the 
expense of the Levite who befriended him. 

The lesson inculcated is different. In A it is that the 
duty of loving one's neighbor is not limited to those of 
the same nation, nor annulled by national antipathies. 
In B it is that he who has been befriended himself 
should befriend others. 

It is not worth while to multiply illustrations. Those 
now adduced are sufficient to give an idea of the method 
by which the critics undertake to effect the partition of 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 125 

the Pentateuch ; and to show how they succeed in creat- 
ing discrepancies and contradictions, where none really 
exist, by simply sundering what properly belongs to- 
gether. The ease with which these results can be ac- 
complished, where obviously they have no possible sig- 
nificance, shows how fallacious and inconclusive this 
style of argument is. No dependence can be placed upon 
a process that leads to palpably erroneous conclusions in 
other cases. An argument that will prove everything, 
proves nothing. And a style of critical analysis which 
can be made to prove everything composite is not to 
be trusted. 

The readiness with which a brief, simple narrative 
yields to critical methods has been sufficiently shown 
above. That extended didactic composition is not proof 
against it is shown in a very clever and effective manner 
in " Romans Dissected," by E. D. McEealsham, the pseu- 
donym of Professor C. M. Mead, D.D., of Hartford 
Theological Seminary. The result of his ingenious and 
scholarly discussion is to demonstrate that as plausible 
an argument can be made from diction, style, and doc- 
trinal contents for the fourfold division of the Epistle to 
the Romans as for the composite character of the Penta- 
teuch. 

Two additional incongruities which beset the partition 
of the Pentateuch may be briefly mentioned here, as 
they are illustrated by the specimens above given of the 
application of like methods to the parables. The first 
is, that the narratives into which the critics resolve the 
Pentateuchal history, and from which they claim that 
this has been compounded, are, as a whole and in all 
their parts, inferior in symmetry and structural arrange- 
ment to the history as it lies in the existing text. On 
the critical hypothesis precisely the reverse should be the 
case. If the history is a conglomerate, in which hetero- 



126 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

geneous materials have been compacted, the critical sev- 
erance which restores the component parts to their orig- 
inal connection and exhibits each of the primary narra- 
tives in its pristine form, and purged of all interpolations 
and extraneous matter, must remove disfigurements and 
reunite the broken links of connection designed by the 
early narrators. The intermingling of goods of different 
patterns has a confusing effect. It is only when they are 
separated, and each is viewed by itself, that its proper 
pattern can be traced and its real beauty discerned. 
But when the separation spoils and mars the fabric, we 
must conclude that what has taken place is not the reso- 
lution of a compound into its primary constituents, but 
the violent rending asunder of what was really a unit, 
the breaking of a graceful statue into misshapen frag- 
ments. 

The second incongruity to be alluded to here concerns 
what the critics consider the restored original narratives, 
not taken separately, each by itself, but in their relation 
to one another. The critics take what in its present 
form, as it lies before us in the Pentateuch, is harmoni- 
ous, symmetrical, and complete, and they deduce from it 
two or more narratives, between which there are discrep- 
ancies, contrarieties, and contradictions ; and these are 
produced simply by the putting asunder of what in the 
existing text to all appearance properly belongs together. 
And it thereby writes its own condemnation. Harmony 
does not arise from combining the incongruous, but dis- 
cord naturally follows upon the derangement of parts, 
which properly fitted into one another are harmonious. 

A word may further be added concerning the marvellous 
perspicacity, verging on omniscience, claimed by the crit- 
ics, who undertake to determine with the utmost assurance 
the authorship not merely of books, or large sections or 
paragraphs, but of individual sentences and clauses, and 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 127 

fragments of clauses. They undertake to point out to 
the very last degree of nicety and minuteness not only 
what J and E and D and P have separately written, how- 
ever involved these may be with one another, but what 
precise changes each of a series of redactors has intro- 
duced into the original text of each, and what glosses 
have been added by a still later hand, and what modifi- 
cations were introduced into the successive editions 
through which the priucipal documents have severally 
passed before or since their combination. They further 
profess to be able to distinguish the primary and some- 
times discordant elements which entered into the orig- 
inal constitution of the principal documents, and what 
belongs to the various stages by which P was brought 
by a series of diaskeuasts to its present complexity and 
elaboration. One would think that the critics would be 
awed by the formidable character of the task which they 
have set for themselves. But they proceed with un- 
daunted front, as though they had an unerring scent 
which could track their game through the most intricate 
doublings and convolutions ; and as though positive as- 
sertions would compensate for the dubious nature of the 
grounds upon which their decisions often rest. 

If further proof were needed of the precarious character 
of the methods and results of this style of subjective 
criticism, it is abundantly supplied by similar exploits 
conducted in other fields, where they can be subjected to 
the sure test of ascertained facts. The havoc wrought in 
the writings of Homer, belonging to a remote antiquity, 
or in the " Nibelungenlied," produced in the obscurity of 
the Middle Ages, is not so much to our present purpose 
as the systematic onset upon Cicero's orations against 
Catiline, of whose genuineness there is indubitable proof. 
Madvig's account of the matter, to which my attention 
was directed by Professor West, of Princeton University, 



128 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

and of wliich he has obligingly furnished the translation, 
is here given in a note. 1 

1 "Let us relate the history of the discussion. It began with F. A. 
Wolf,* who cast doubt in a general way upon several of Cicero's Ora- 
tions. Following Wolf came Eichstaedt, who reviewed Wolf's book in 
1802, and took the position that at least one of the Catilinarian Orations 
ought to be included in the condemnation bestowed upon other orations. 
Wolf quickly followed Eicbstaedt and condemned the Third Oration, 
and in subsequent comments and remarks stated the question in such a 
way as to leave it uncertain which oration he meant, or whether it was 
one of two orations, and so, in 1826, Clude, thinking he was following 
out the opinion of Wolf, proved to his own satisfaction and the satisfac- 
tion of some others, that it was the Second Oration which was spurious. 
But shortly afterward (in 1827) Benecke, by producing the very words 
of Wolf from one of his letters showed that Wolf meant the Third Ora- 
tion. In the meantime the Fourth Oration had fallen under the dis- 
pleasure of other critics, notably Zimmermann and Bloch, and so Ahrens, 
in 1832, passed sentence on the unfortunate oration, embracing the 
Third Oration at the same time in his condemnation. Finally came 
Orelli, in 1836, and fearing, I suppose, that such inconsistencies of opin- 
ion would end in contempt and ridicule, decided that all three were 
spurious. 

"In addition to other evidence from ancient writers which was easily 
answered, there stood opposed to this conclusion the authority of Cicero 
himself, who in the First Epistle of the Second Book of his Letters to 
Atticus makes abundant reference to his own consular orations, and 
enumerates one by one the four Orations against Catiline. 

" And so no other course was left the critics except to come to the in- 
credible conclusion that genuine orations of Cicero, delivered on a most 
famous occasion, had so faded out of remembrance by the time of Au- 
gustus (for Ahrens admits that the orations we possess are as old as this) 
that spurious orations could be put in their place and meet with accept- 
ance, without any contemporary objection, in spite of the fact that one 
genuine oration out of the four still remained, and was put together 
with the three false ones. Orelli met the emergency heroically (forti 
remedio), for he cut oiit the whole of this passage from the middle of 
Cicero's Letter to Atticus. Consequently no statement remained regard- 
ing the various Catilinarian orations published by Cicero himself. 
Thereupon Orelli excogitated a pleasant hypothesis (fabulam lepidam) 
to the effect that a forger first supplied the three orations, and then, in 
order to insure their acceptance, inserted in the Letter of Cicero a forged 

* The critic of Homer and father of the destructive literary criticism. 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 129 

My colleague, Dr. Warfield, has also pointed me to an 
instructive instance which is still more recent. It is 
thus described by Dr. Heinrici : * " How easily one is 
led astray by assuming a course of thought supposed 
to be requisite, is shown in a very instructive man- 
statement in regard to these same orations. But inasmuch as Cicero's 
Letters were then in circulation, we might ask, How was it that this 
forger inserted his forgery not only in his own copy of Cicero's Letters, 
but in the copies of all other readers whom he wished to deceive, and 
so managed it that no other copy of this Letter should remain extant 
written in any other manner ? But the same critical shrewdness helps 
the critics at this juncture. The forger is that very man who edited 
the volume of Letters after Cicero's death, namely, Marcus Tullius Tiro, 
the freedman. What ! Tiro, the faithful freedman to whom Cicero en- 
trusted his Letters, and who wrote the life of his dead patron accurately 
and affectionately, and upon whom no suspicion ever fell, was he a 
forger ? 'Yes, indeed,' they answered, 'and he did it with good in- 
tention.' Orelli says, 'He thought that he would honor his noble pa- 
tron most if Cicero's illustrious performance were made celebrated not 
merely by one but by four orations.' What a marvellous license of 
imagination and credulity of doubt! So, then, Tiro did not think the 
matter would be famous by reason of his narrative of Cicero's life, but, 
although he had never uttered a word in a public assembly, or written 
even a short oration, he yet thought that the glory of his patron, the 
greatest orator of Rome, would be increased by Tiro's forging orations 
under Cicero's name. Yet why not ? For the very critic, who is every- 
where finding fault with the wretched inconsistencies of Tiro's writings, 
yet in former times had actually admired Cicero on account of these 
false orations." — Madvig : Opuscula Academica, Hauniae, 1887, pp. 671 
sqq. 

Dr. West adds: "Madvig's reductio ad cibsurdum is complete. 
There are numerous other instances in Latin criticism that are in- 
structive. Ribbeck's youthful venture at the text of Juvenal, Peerl- 
kamp's exploits in Horace, the discussion forty years ago regarding the 
treatise Be Trinitate, ascribed to Boethius, and the treatment of Caesar's 
Commentaries on the Gallic War, ought not to be forgotten. Schoell's 
slashing editing of Plautus in our own time is also a case in point. 
Happily the spirit which at present rules Latin studies is historical and 
inductive. The other reminds us of the old proverb about the Sabines 
— Sabini quod volunt somniant.'" 

1 Meyer's Kommentar iiber den 1 Cor., seventh edit., 1888, Vorrede. 
9 



130 THE HIGHEE CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

ner by Scherer's ingenious analysis of the Prologue 
of Faust in his Goethe-Studies. It should set up a 
beacon to warn classical philologists against overhasty 
interpolation-criticism, since it shows how in a piece of 
writing, whose composition by one author is beyond 
question, profound diversities of style and inner contra- 
dictions exist. Scherer proposes to explain them from 
differences in the time of composition and subsequent 
combination. And now the oldest manuscript of Faust 
has been published by Erich Schmidt, which proves that 
it was the ' young Goethe ' who wrote the prologue at 
one effort essentially as it now stands. It is the same 
' young Goethe ' who speaks both in the ferment of 
youth and in a disillusioned old age." 

It has been claimed that the general agreement among 
critics of various schools in regard to the partition is such 
as to establish in the main the correctness of their con- 
clusions. Where not only avowed antisupernaturalists 
like Wellhausen, Kuenen, and Stade, but Dillmann, who 
openly antagonizes them, and believing scholars like 
Delitzsch and Driver are in accord, are we not con- 
strained to yield assent to their positions ? To this we 
reply : 

1. That this is not a question to be decided by author- 
ity but by reason and argument. 

2. The consensus of divisive critics settles, not the 
truth of the hypothesis, but what they consider its most 
plausible and defensible form. The partition of the 
Pentateuch is a definite problem with certain data, to 
which any solution that is offered must adapt itself. 
Experiments without number have been made to ascer- 
tain the practicability of this partition, and what lines of 
division offer the best chance of success. The ground 
has been surveyed inch by inch with the most scrupulous 
care, its possibilities ascertained, and diligent search 



THE UNITY OP THE PENTATEUCH 131 

made for the best methods of guarding weak points, 
protecting against assault, overcoming difficulties, clos- 
ing up gaps, and dealing with intractable passages. 
And the present agreement of critics, so far as it goes, 
indicates what is believed to be the most practicable 
mode of carrying out the hypothesis that has yet been 
devised. 

3. The agreement of the critics is by no means per- 
fect. While at many points there is a general consent, 
at others there is wide divergence. Dillmann differs 
from Wellhausen, and he from Kuenen, and Julicher 
from them all. Many are content to follow the promi- 
nent leaders more or less implicitly, but critics of inde- 
pendence and originality continue to propose new expe- 
dients and offer fresh conjectures. Difficulties gather as 
the work proceeds. In large portions of Genesis there is 
comparative agreement ; in the middle books of the Pen- 
tateuch the diversities greatly multiply ; and in Joshua, 
the crown of the Hexateuch, there is the most discordant 
medley. 

4. A large number of eminent scholars accept the 
critical partition of the Pentateuch in general, if not in 
all its details. It has its fascinations, which sufficiently 
account for its popularity. The learning, ability, and 
patient toil which have been expended upon its elabora- 
tion, the specious arguments arrayed in its support, and 
the skill with which it has been adapted to the phenom- 
ena of the Pentateuch and of the Old Testament gener- 
ally, have given to it the appearance of great plausibility. 
The novel lines of inquiry which it opens make it attrac- 
tive to those of a speculative turn of mind, who see in 
it the opportunity for original and fruitful research in 
the reproduction of ancient documents, long buried un- 
suspected in the existing text, which they antedate by 
centuries. The boldness and seeming success with 



132 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

which it undertakes to revolutionize traditional opinion, 
and give a new aspect to the origin and history of the 
religion of the Old Testament, and its alliance with the 
doctrine of development, which has found such wide 
application in other fields of investigation, have largely 
contributed to its popularity. And those who have a 
bias against the supernatural or the divine authority of 
the Pentateuch see in this hypothesis a ready way of 
disposing of its Mosaic origin and of the historic truth 
of whatever they are indisposed to accept. 

The various forms of the partition hypothesis and the 
several arguments by which they are supported have 
now been examined. The arguments have been found 
inadequate and it will elsewhere be shown in detail that 
the hypothesis cannot be fitted to the phenomena of the 
Pentateuch. 1 Its failure is not from the lack of ingenuity 
or learning, or persevering effort on the part of its advo- 
cates, nor from the want of using the utmost latitude of 
conjecture, but simply from the impossibility of accom- 
plishing the end proposed. While, however, the hy- 
pothesis has proved futile as an attempt to account for 
the origin of the Pentateuch, the labor spent upon it 
has not been entirely thrown away, and it has not been 
without positive advantage to the cause of truth. (1) It 
has demonstrated the impossibility of such a partition. 
The experiment has been tried in every way that the 
utmost ingenuity could devise, but without success. (2) 
It has led to the development of a vast mass of positive 
evidence of unity, which would not otherwise have been 
so diligently sought for, and might not have been 

1 Its incompatibility with the book of Genesis is demonstrated in a 
companion volume, The Unity of the Book of Genesis. The reader 
is likewise referred to the discussion of the remaining books of the 
Pentateuch in articles by the author in the Hebraica for 1890 and sub- 
sequently. 



THE UNITY OF THE PENTATEUCH 133 

brought to light. (3) It has led to the elucidation and 
better understanding of the Pentateuch from the neces- 
sity thus imposed of minute and thorough investigation 
of the meaning and bearings of every word and sentence, 
and of the mutual relations of every part. It verifies 
the old fable of a field which was dug over for a chimeri- 
cal purpose, but the labor thus expended was rewarded 
by an unlooked-for harvest, sprung from seed which lay 
unsuspected in the soil. 



V 

GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 

The first and second stages of opposition to the Mo- 
saic authorship of the Pentateuch have now been re- 
viewed. There yet remain to be considered the third 
and fourth lines of objection, which are based upon the 
triplicity of the legal codes and the non-observance of 
the laws. This brings us to the third and last stage of 
opposition. 

The next phase of the critical movement, which issued 
in the present reigning school of divisive criticism, 
wrought as sudden and complete a revolution in the 
ideas of scholars of this class as the speculations of Dar- 
win effected in Natural History, when the denial of the 
unity of the human race collapsed on the instant, and it 
was held instead that all animated being had sprung from 
common germs. And the lever which effected the over- 
throw was in both cases the same, that is, the doctrine 
of development. This at once exalted the speculations 
of Ewald and Hupfeld to a prominence which they had 
not previously attained, and made them important factors 
in the new advance. From Ewald was borrowed the 
idea that the composition of the Pentateuch was not 
accomplished at a stroke by one act, whether of supple- 
menting or of combining pre-existing documents, but 
took place in successive stages by a series of enlarging 
combinations. From Hupfeld were derived the two pil- 
lars of his scheme — the continuity of the Jehovist docu- 
ment and the composite character of the Elohist — or, in 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 135 

other words, that the Jehovist did not merely make addi- 
tions to a pre-existing work, but wrote an independent 
work of his own, and that there were two Elohists instead 
of one. Thus both Ewald and Hupfeld, without intend- 
ing or imagining it, smoothed the way for the rise of a 
school of criticism with ideas quite diverse from their 
own. 

The various attempts to partition the Pentateuch had 
thus far been based on exclusively literary grounds. 
Diction, style, ideas, the connection of paragraphs and 
sentences supplied the staple arguments for each of the 
forms which the hypothesis had assumed, and furnished 
the criteria from which all conclusions were drawn. 
Numerous efforts had been made to ascertain the dates 
to which the writers severally belonged. Careful studies 
were instituted to discover the bias under which they 
respectively wrote, as suggesting the influences by which 
they might be supposed to be surrounded, and hence 
their historical situation. They were diligently searched 
for historical allusions that might afford clews. But with 
all the pains that were taken no sure footing could be 
found, and the critics agreed not together. Conjectures 
ranged ad libitum through the ages from the time of 
Moses, or his immediate successor, Joshua, to that of 
Josiah, eight centuries later. And while the internal cri- 
teria were so vague, there was no external support on 
which the whole hypothesis could rest, no objective 
proof that the entire fabric was not a sheer figment of 
the imagination. Amid all diversities, however, two 
points were universally agreed upon, and regarded as 
settled beyond contradiction : (1) The Elohist was the 
groundwork of the Pentateuch ; it supplied the scheme 
or general plan, into which the other parts were fitted. 
And as it was the oldest, so it was historically the most 
reliable and trustworthy portion. The Jehovist was 



136 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

more legendary, depending, as it was believed to do, 
upon later and less credible traditions. (2) Deuteronomy 
was the latest and the crowning portion of the Penta- 
teuch, by the addition of which the whole work was ren- 
dered complete. 

DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS. 

Here the Development Hypothesis came in with its 
revolutionary conclusions. It supplied the felt lack of 
its predecessors by fixing definite dates and offering ob- 
jective proof of their correctness. The conclusions de- 
duced from the examination of the Pentateuch itself are 
verified by an appeal to the history. Arguments are 
drawn, not as heretofore, from the narratives of the Pen- 
tateuch but from its institutions ; not from its historical 
portion but from its laws. The principle of development 
is applied. The simplest forms of legislation are to be 
considered the most primitive. As the Israelites devel- 
oped in the course of ages from rude nomadic tribes to a 
settled and well-organized nation, their legislation natu- 
rally grew in complexity and extent. Now the Pentateuch 
obviously contains three distinct codes or bodies of law. 
One is in Exodus xx.-xxiii. which is called in the original 
text the Book of the Covenant (Ex. xxiv. 7). This Moses 
is said to have written and read to the assembled people 
at Mount Sinai as the basis of the covenant relation there 
formally ratified between Jehovah and Israel. Another 
is the Deuteronomic Law, which Moses is said to have 
rehearsed to the people in the plains of Moab, shortly 
before his death, and to have delivered in writing to the 
custody of the priests, to be laid up alongside of the ark 
of the covenant (Deut. xxxi. 24-26). A third is the Kitual 
law, or Priest code, contained in the later chapters of 
Exodus, the book of Leviticus, and certain chapters of 



GENUINENESS OF THE I/AWS 137 

Numbers. This law is declared in the general and in all 
its parts to have been communicated by God to Moses. 

The advocates of this hypothesis, however, take issue 
with these explicit statements, and affirm that these 
codes could not have had the origin attributed to them. 
It is maintained that they are so diverse in character and 
so inconsistent in their provisions that they cannot have 
originated at any one time or have proceeded from any 
one legislator. The Book of the Covenant, from its sim- 
plicity and brevity, must have belonged to an early stage 
in the history of the people. From this there is a great 
advance in the Deuterononiic code. And the Ritual law, 
or Priest code, is much the most minute and complicated 
of all, and hence the latest in the series. Long periods 
must have elapsed, and great changes have taken place in 
the condition of the people to have wrought such changes 
in their institutions. 

The Book of the Covenant makes no mention of a 
priesthood, as a separate order of men alone authorized 
to perform sacred functions. The Deuteronomic code 
speaks of priests, who are constantly designated " the 
priests, the Levites," from which it is inferred that the 
sacerdotal prerogative inhered in the tribe as such, and 
that any Levite might be a priest. The Priest code lim- 
its the sacerdotal office to the family of Aaron : other 
Levites were simply their servants and attendants, per- 
forming menial functions at the sanctuary, but not al- 
lowed to offer sacrifice. 

In the Book of the Covenant sacrifices are not regu- 
lated by statute, but are the free, spontaneous gift of the 
offerer unto God, in grateful acknowledgment of the di- 
vine benefits. In Deuteronomy certain kinds of offerings 
are specified, but with no fixed requisition of number 
and quality, and these are to be joyously partaken of by 
the offerer and his family and friends before the Loed. 



138 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

In the Levitical code additional kinds of sacrifice are re- 
quired, not mentioned elsewhere, and everything is rigor- 
ously fixed by statute — what particular animal is to be 
offered in each species of sacrifice or on any given occa- 
sion ; its sex .and age, and sometimes even its color ; its 
accompaniments and the precise ceremonies to be ob- 
served are specified. The whole has become a matter of 
ritual, an affair of the priests, who absorb as their per- 
quisites what had previously fed the devotion of the 
offerer. 

All this, and much beside, is urged as indicating the 
progressive development in the Israelitish institutions 
as represented in these codes, which are hence regarded 
as separated by long intervals of time. The fallacy lies 
in putting asunder what really belongs together. All 
belong to one comprehensive and harmonious body of 
law, though each separate portion has its own particular 
design, by which its form and contents are determined. 
That the Book of the Covenant is so brief and element- 
ary in matters of worship is because of its preliminary 
character. It was intended simply to be the basis of 
God's covenant with Israel, not to develop in detail the 
duties growing out of that covenant relation. That Deu- 
teronomy does not contain the minute ceremonial require- 
ments to be found in Leviticus is no indication that the 
latter is the subsequent development of a more ritualistic 
age. It is simply because there was no need of repeat- 
ing details which had already been sufficiently enlarged 
upon elsewhere. The Priest code was for the guidance 
of the priests, in conducting the ritual ; Deuteronomy for 
the people at large, to whom the great lawgiver addressed 
his earnest warnings and exhortations as he was on the 
point of being taken from them. The differences and 
discrepancies alleged in these laws are for the most part 
capable of being satisfactorily harmonized. If a few 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 139 

puzzles remain insoluble by us, they are not more than 
might be expected in matters of so ancient date, so 
foreign from modern ideas and usages and in regard to 
which we are so imperfectly informed. If we had more 
knowledge our present difficulties would doubtless vanish, 
as others once considered formidable have long since dis- 
appeared. 

The Book of the Covenant, primitive as it is, neverthe- 
less could not have been enacted in the desert ; for it has 
laws respecting fields and vineyards and olive-yards and 
standing grain and grain in shocks (Ex. xxii. 5, 6 ; xxiii. 
11), and offerings of first-fruits (xxii. 29, xxiii. 19), and six 
years of tillage with a sabbatical year whose spontaneous 
products should be for the poor and the beasts of the 
field (xxiii. 10, 11), and harvest feasts and feasts of in- 
gathering (xxiii.). All these have no application to a 
people in the desert. They belong to a settled people, 
engaged in agriculture. Such a law, it is alleged, could 
only have been given after the settlement of the people 
in Canaan. 

The law of Deuteronomy, while greatly expanded be- 
yond the Book of the Covenant in its provisions, has one 
marked and characteristic feature which serves to define 
the period to which it belongs. The Book of the Cove- 
nant (Ex. xx. 24), sanctions altars in all places where God 
records his name. Deuteronomy, on the other hand (ch. 
xii.), strictly limits the offering of sacrifice to the one 
place which Jehovah should choose. Now, it is said, the 
period of the judges and the early kings is marked by a 
multiplicity of altars and worship in high places in ac- 
cordance with the Book of the Covenant. But in the 
reign of king Josiah, more than eight hundred years 
after the settlement in Canaan, the high places were 
abolished and sacrifice was restricted to the altar in Jeru- 
salem. And this was done in obedience to the require- 



140 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

ments of a book of the law then found in the temple (2 
Kin. xxii. 8). That book was Deuteronomy. It was the 
soul of the entire movement. And this is the period to 
which it belongs. 

This new departure, though successful so long as the 
pious Josiah lived, spent its force when he was taken 
away ; and under his ungodly successors the people re- 
lapsed again into the worship on high places, the popu- 
lar attachment to which had not been eradicated. This 
was effectually broken, however, by the Babylonish cap- 
tivity, which severed the people from the spots which 
they had counted sacred, until all the old associations 
had faded away. The returning exiles, impoverished and 
few in number, were bent only on restoring the temple in 
Jerusalem, and had no other place at which to worship. 
It was then and under these circumstances that Ezra 
came forth with a fresh book of law, adapted to the new 
state of things, and engaged the people to obedience 
(Neh. viii.). This book, then first produced, was the 
Bitual law or the Priest code. It also limits sacrifice to 
one place, as was done by Deuteronomy ; but in the lat- 
ter this was regarded as a new departure, which it would 
be difficult to introduce, and which is, therefore, reiter- 
ated and insisted upon with great urgency (Deut. xii.). 
In the Priest code, on the contrary, it is quietly as- 
sumed as a matter of course, as though nothing else was 
thought of, and this had been the established rule from 
the time of Moses. 

It had been customary for critics to attribute the Priest 
code to the Elohist, and the Book of the Covenant to the 
Jehovist ; so that the former was considered the first, and 
the latter the second legislation. Graf, who in his fa- 
mous essay on the " Historical Books of the Old Testa- 
ment," in 1866, undertook to reverse this order in the man- 
ner already indicated, felt it necessary to separate the 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 141 

historical from the legal portion of the Elohist document, 
and to maintain that, while the former was the oldest 
portion of the Pentateuch, the latter was the latest. It 
was promptly shown, however, in opposition to Graf, that 
such a separation was impossible. The connection be- 
tween the Elohist histories and the ritual legislation was 
too intimate to be severed. Kuenen, Professor in Ley- 
den, then boldly grasped the situation, accepted the 
order of the legislation proposed by Graf, and intrep- 
idly contended, against the unanimous voice of all ante- 
cedent critics, that the entire Elohist document, history 
and legislation, was the latest constituent of the Penta- 
teuch. This reversal of all former beliefs on this subject 
rendered necessary by the Development Hypothesis, met 
at first with determined opposition. It was not until 
1878, seventeen years ago, that Julius Wellhausen as- 
sumed its advocacy in the first volume of his " History of 
Israel." His skilful presentation won for it a sudden pop- 
ularity, and it has since been all the rage in Germany. 
Seventeen years of supremacy in that land of speculation 
is scarcely sufficient, however, to guarantee its permanence 
even there. The history of the past would rather lead 
one to expect that in no long time it will be replaced by 
some fresh novelty. 1 

1 For further details in respect to the history of Pentateuch Criticism 
see the Nachwort, by Merx, to the second edition of Tuch's Commentar 
iiber die Genesis, pp. lxxviii.-cxxii. 

Wellhausen's Ubersicht iiber den Fortgang der Pentateuchkritik seit 
Bleek's Tode in Bleek's Einleitung in das Alte Testament, fourth edi- 
tion, pp. 152-178. 

Kuenen"s Hexateuch (English Translation), Outline of the History of 
the Criticism of the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua during the last 
Quarter of a Century, pp xi.-xl. 

The following additional works may here be named, which are writ- 
ten in the interest of the Development Hypothesis : 

Kayser : Das vorexilische Buch der Urgeschichte Israels und seine 
Erweiterunaren, 1874. 



142 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

This reversal of the order of the Elohist and the Jeho- 
vist at once put an end to the Supplement Hypothesis. 

Wellhausen : Die Composition des Hexateuchs, in the JahrMcher fur 
Deutsche Theologie, 1876 and 1877 ; also reprinted separately in his 
Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, vol. ii. 

Reuss : Geschichte der h'eiligen Schriften des Alten Testaments, 1881. 

Cornill : Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1891. 

Holzinger : Einleitung in den Hexateuch, 1893. 

Wildeboer : Die Litteratur des Alten Testaments, 1895. 

The latest form of the partition of Genesis adopted by this school of 
critics is very conveniently exhibited to the eye by a diversity of type 
in Kantzsch und Socin, Die Genesis mit ausserer Unterscheidung der 
Quellenschriften, second edition, 1891. This is reproduced for English 
readers, in a diversity of colors, in Dr. E. C. Bissell's Genesis Printed in 
Colors, showing the original sources from which it is supposed to have 
been compiled, 1892. In B. W. Bacon's The Genesis of Genesis, 1892, 
the supposed documents are first indicated by a diversity of type, and 
then each is in addition printed separately. 

This hypothesis is antagonized by Dillmann, in his Commentaries on 
the Pentateuch and Joshua, in one of its main positions, that the Priest 
code was posterior to Deuteronomy. 

It was still more decidedly opposed by — 

D. Hoffmann in a series of articles in the Magazin fur die Wissen- 
schaft des Judenthums, 1876-1880. 

Franz Delitzsch in articles in Luthardt's Zeitschrift fur Kirchliche 
Wissenschaft und Leben, 1880, 1882. 

Bredenkamp : Gesetz und Propheten, 1881. 

F. E. Konig : Die Hauptprobleme der israelitischen Religions 
geschichte, 1884. 

E. Konig : Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1893. 
Also on still more thoroughly evangelical ground by — 
A. Zahn : Das Deuteronominm. 

E. Rupprecht ; Das Ratsel des Fiinfbuches Mose und seine falsche 
Losung, 1894. Des Ratsels Losung, 1895. 

This hypothesis was introduced to the English public and advocated 
by- 

W. Robertson Smith in several articles in the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica, and in The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, 1881 ; second 
edition, 1892. 

S. R. Driver : An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testa- 
ment, 1891. 

C. A. Briggs : The Higher Criticism of the Hexateuch, 1893. 

Among the replies made to it in Great Britain may be named — 

R. Watts : The Newer Criticism and the Analogy of the Faith. 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 143 

For the Jehovist could not have made additions to the 
Elohist document if that document did not come into 
existence until centuries after his time. It thus became 
necessary to assume that the Jehovist passages, however 
isolated and fragmentary, constituted a separate docu- 
ment ; and the continuity was made out, as proposed by 
Hupfeld, by using scattered clauses torn from their con- 
nection to bridge the chasms. The second Elohist of 
Hupfeld also became a necessity, though now supposed 
to antedate the first. The passages in the patriarchal 
history alluded to by Hosea and other early prophets 
must be eliminated from the Elohist document before 
this can be reckoned postesilic. The great bulk of the 
history is accordingly made over to the second Elohist, 
and so this argument of early date is evaded. In this 
manner the way is smoothed for turning all former con- 
Deuteronomy the People's Book, its Origin and Nature (by J. Sime, 
Esq. , published anonymously). 

J. Sime, Esq. : The History of All-Israel. 

A. Cave : The Inspiration of the Pentateuch, inductively considered. 

Bishop Ellicott : Christus Comprobator. 

J. Robertson : The Early Religion of Israel (Baird Lecture for 1889). 

Lex Mosaica, or the Law of Moses and the Higher Criticism (Essays 
by various writers), edited by R. V. French, 1894. 

The following may be mentioned among those that have appeared in 
America : 

E. C. Bissell : The Pentateuch, its Origin and Structure, 1885. 
G. Vos : The Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuchal Codes, 1886. 
C. M. Mead : Christ and Criticism. 

Essays on Pentateuchal Criticism, by various writers, edited by T. W. 
Chambers. 1888. 

Anti-Higher Criticism (articles by various writers), edited by L. W. 
Munhall. 1894. 

T. E. Schmauk : The Negative Criticism and the Old Testament, 1894. 

F. R. Beattie : Radical Criticism, 1895. 

W. H. Green : Moses and the Prophets. 1883. The Hebrew Feasts 
in their Relation to Recent Critical Hypotheses, 1885. 

The following able work in defence of the authorship of Moses and in 
opposition to the development hypothesis has recently appeared in Hol- 
land : Hoedemaker, De Mozaische Oorsprong van de Wetten iu Exodus, 
Leviticus en Nunieri, 1895. , , 



144 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

ceptions of the critics regarding the formation of the 
Pentateuch upside down. The Elohim document, from 
being the oldest and most reliable, becomes the latest 
and the least trustworthy. It is even charged that its 
facts are manufactured for a purpose ; that the author 
makes statements not because he has evidence of their 
truth, but because they correspond with his ideas of 
what ought to have occurred, and what he therefore 
imagines must have occurred. Instead of representing 
the Mosaic age as it really was he gives, as Dr. Driver 
expresses it (" Literature of the O. T.," p. 120), " an ideal 
picture " of it. 

SCRIPTURAL STATEMENTS. 

It has already been remarked, as is indeed obvious 
upon its face, that the Development Hypothesis flatly 
contradicts throughout the account which the Pentateuch 
gives of itself. The laws are all explicitly declared to 
have been Mosaic, to have been written down by Moses, 
or to have been communicated to him directly from the 
Lord. And there is no good reason for discrediting the 
biblical statements on this subject. The three codes be- 
long precisely where the Scripture narrative places them, 
and they are entirely appropriate in that position. The 
elementary character of the Book of the Covenant is ex- 
plained not by its superior antiquity, but by its prelimi- 
nary purpose. It was a brief body of regulations intended 
to serve as a basis for the formal ratification of the cove- 
nant between Jehovah and the people of Israel. Accord- 
ingly all that was required was a few simple and com- 
prehensive rules, framed in the spirit of the religion of 
Jehovah, for the government of the people in their rela- 
tions to one another and in their relation to God, to 
which in a solemn act of worship they were to pledge 
assent. After this fundamental act had been duly per- 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 145 

formed, and the covenant relation had thns been insti- 
tuted and acknowledged by both the contracting parties 
the way was open for a fuller development of the duties 
and obligations involved in this relation. Jehovah as 
the covenant God of Israel would henceforth take up his 
abode in the midst of his people. This made it neces- 
sary that detailed instructions should be given, for which 
there was no occasion before, respecting the construction 
of the sacred Tabernacle, the services to be performed in 
it, the officiating priesthood, the set times for special 
solemnities, and in general the entire ritual to be ob- 
served by a holy people for the expression and perpetu- 
ation of their communion with a holy God. All this was 
embodied in the Priest code, in which the scanty general 
provisions of the Book of the Covenant regarding divine 
worship were replaced by a vastly expanded and minutely 
specified ceremonial. This was not a development imply- 
ing the lapse of ages with an altered civilization and a cor- 
responding advance in the popular notions of the Divine 
Being, and of the homage that should be paid to him. 

At the close of the forty years' wandering, when the 
great legislator was about to die, he recapitulated in the 
audience of the people the laws already given in the Book 
of the Covenant, with such modifications and additions as 
were suggested by the circumstances in which they were 
placed, the experience of the past, and the prospects of 
the immediate future. The Deuteronomic code thus en- 
acted Avas a development, not as the Priest code had 
been, on the side of the ritual, but considered as a code 
for popular guidance in civil and religious matters. The 
enlargement, which we here find, of the simple regula- 
tions of the Book of the Covenant implies no longer in- 
terval and no greater change in the condition or consti- 
tution of the people than is provided for in the Scripture 
narrative. And at the same time the fact that we do not 
10 



146 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

find in Deuteronomy a ritual so elaborate and minutely 
detailed as in Leviticus, is not because Leviticus is the 
further development of a still later period, when cere- 
monies were more multiplied and held in higher esteem, 
but simply because Leviticus was a professional book, 
and Deuteronomy was a popular book. Leviticus was 
for the guidance of the priests who were professionally 
charged with the oversight and direction of the cere- 
monial, and Deuteronomy for the guidance of the people 
in matters more immediately within their province. 
Medical works for the instruction of physicians must 
necessarily be more minute than sanitary rules for popu- 
lar use. And if it would be absurd to say that the same 
eminent physician could not produce both a professional 
and a popular treatise on medicine, it is equally so to in- 
sist, as the critics do, that Deuteronomy and Leviticus 
cannot both be from the same age and the same legislator. 
It is further to be observed that the agricultural allu- 
sions in the Book of the Covenant are not in conflict with 
its Mosaic origin, and its delivery at Sinai. The people 
were on their way to Canaan. This land had been prom- 
ised to their fathers, and the Lord had renewedly prom- 
ised to give it to them. It was with this expectation 
that they left Egypt. For this they were marching 
through the desert. Canaan was their anticipated home, 
the goal of their hopes. They confidently trusted that 
they would soon be settled there in full possession. 
That there was to be even so much as a delay of forty 
years, and that the entire adult generation was to pass 
away before this hope was fulfilled, never entered the 
mind of the leader or the people ; since neither could 
have imagined such an act of gross rebellion as that for 
which they were sentenced to perish in the wilderness. 
It would have been strange, indeed, if the law given under 
these circumstances did not look beyond the desert as 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 147 

their abode, and took no note of what was in immediate 
prospect. It was quite appropriate for it to contemplate 
their expected life in Canaan, and to give regulations 
respecting the fields and vineyards and olive yards, 
which they were shortly to possess. 

NO DISCREPANCY. 

And there is no such difference as is pretended be- 
tween the Book of the Covenant and the other Mosaic 
codes in respect to the place of legitimate sacrifice. It 
is not true that the former sanctioned a multiplicity of 
altars, and that this was the recognized practice of pious 
worshippers of Jehovah until the reign of Josiah, and 
that he instituted a new departure from all previous law 
and custom by restricting sacrifice to one central altar in 
compliance with a book of the law then for the first time 
promulgated. The unity of the altar was the laAv of 
Israel's life from the beginning. Even in the days of 
the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, no such thing 
was known as separate rival sanctuaries for the worship 
of Jehovah, coexisting in various parts of the land. They 
built altars and offered sacrifice in whatever part of the 
land they might be, particularly in places where Jehovah 
appeared to them. But the patriarchal family was a 
unit, and while they worshipped in different places suc- 
cessively in the course of their migrations, they never- 
theless worshipped in but one place at a time. They 
did not offer sacrifice contemporaneously on different al- 
. tars. So with Israel in their marches through the wilder- 
ness. They set up their altar wherever they encamped, 
at various places successively, but not in more than one 
place at the same time. This is the state of things which 
is recognized and made legitimate in the Book of the 
Covenant. In Exodus xx. 2-4, the Israelites are author- 



148 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

ized to erect an altar, not wherever they may please, 
but " in all places where God records his name." The 
critics interpret this as a direct sanction given to various 
sanctuaries in different parts of Palestine. There is no 
foundation whatever for such an interpretation. There 
is not a word here nor anywhere in Scripture, from which 
the legitimacy of the multitudinous sanctuaries of a later 
time can be inferred. An altar is lawful, and sacrifice 
upon it acceptable, and God will there meet with his 
people and bless them only where he records his name ; 
not where men may utter his name, whether by invoca- 
tion or proclamation, but where God reveals or manifests 
himself. He manifested himself gloriously on Sinai amid 
awful indications of his presence. This was Moses's 
warrant for building an altar there (Ex. xxiv. 4). When 
the tabernacle was erected, and the ark deposited in it as 
the abiding symbol of the divine presence, that became 
the spot where God recorded his name, and to which all 
sacrifices were to be brought (Lev. xvii. 5). So that 
wherever the tabernacle or the ark was stationed, an altar 
might properly be erected and sacrifices offered. 

And Deuteronomy xii. looks forward to the time when 
Israel should be permanently settled in the land which 
Jehovah their God was giving them to inherit, and he 
should have given them rest from all their enemies round 
about so that they should dwell in safety ; then he would 
choose a place out of all their tribes to put his name 
there, and that should thenceforth be his habitation and 
the sole place of legitimate sacrifice. These conditions 
were not fulfilled until the peaceful reign of Solomon, 
who by divine direction built the temple as Jehovah's 
permanent abode. Here the Most High placed his name 
by filling it with his effulgent glory at its dedication, and 
thenceforward this was the one place whither the people 
went up to meet with God and worship him by sacrifice ; 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 149 

thither they directed their prayers, and from his holy hill 
of Zion God sent forth his help and his salvation. 

There is thus the most entire concord between the sev- 
eral codes in regard to the place of sacrifice. It was from 
the beginning limited to the place of divine manifestation. 
As this manifestation was on all ordinary occasions re- 
stricted first to the Mosaic tabernacle, and then to the 
temple of Solomon, the language of the Book of the 
Covenant no less than that of the Levitical and Deuter- 
onomic codes demanded that sacrifice should ordinarily 
be restricted to these sacred edifices. Only the Book of 
the Covenant, which lays down the primal and universal 
law of the Hebrew altar, is wider in its scope, inasmuch 
as it embraces those extraordinary occasions likewise for 
which there was no need to make express provision in 
the other codes. If God manifested himself by an imme- 
diate and supernatural appearance elsewhere than at the 
sanctuary, that spot became, not permanently indeed, 
but so long as the manifestation lasted, holy ground, and 
a place of legitimate sacrifice. And on the other hand, 
if the Most High at any time withdrew his ordinary pres- 
ence from the sanctuary, as when the ark was captured 
by the Philistines, the sanctuary ceased to be the place 
where God recorded his name, the restriction of sacrifice 
to that spot was, ipso facto, for the time abolished ; and 
in the absence of any definite provision for the regular seat 
of God's worship, the people were left to offer sacrifice as 
best they might. To the extent of these two exceptional 
cases the Book of the Covenant is more comprehensive 
than the other codes. But it lends no sanction what- 
ever to that irregular and unregulated worship which 
the critics would make it cover. 

After the capture of the ark, and during the period of 
its seclusion in a private house which followed, the wor- 
ship on high places had a certain sort of legitimacy from 



150 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

the exigencies of the situation, as is expressly stated (1 
Kin. iii. 2) ; as it had also at a later period in the apostate 
kingdom of Israel, where the pious among the people 
were restrained from going to the house of God in Jeru- 
salem. But apart from these exceptional cases worship 
at other altars than that at the sanctuary was in violation 
of the express statute. 

ALLEGED VIOLATIONS OP THE LAW. 

The critics argue the non-existence of the law from its 
repeated violation. It is claimed that the history shows 
that the laws of the Pentateuch were not in fact obeyed : 
whence it is inferred that no such laws were then known. 
It is admitted, of course, that there were numerous de- 
partures from God and repeated open violations or con- 
tinued neglect of his laws. The history records such in- 
stances again and again, but it brands them in every 
case as wilful transgressions against God and his known 
law. It does not follow from the perpetration of murder 
and theft that such acts were not regarded as criminal, 
nor that the sixth and eighth commandments were un- 
known. When it is over and over charged that the 
people forsook the Lord and worshipped Baal and Ash- 
taroth, this can be explained in no other way than as 
an apostasy from Jehovah to these foreign deities. For 
if there is anything that is obvious, it is that Jehovah 
was Israel's God from the beginning. Such open de- 
clensions from the true God have no bearing, therefore, 
on the present subject. They were plain offences against 
known and acknowledged obligation. 

But it is affirmed that good men at different periods 
acted habitually at variance with the requirement of the 
ritual laws without incurring censure and apparently 
without being sensible that they were doing wrong or 
transgressing any commandment. 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 151 

Thus, while the law required that sacrifices should be 
offered only at the sanctuary and only by priests, the 
sons of Aaron, repeated mention is made of sacrifices 
being offered to the Lord, and, so far as appears, with ac- 
ceptance, though it was elsewhere than at the sanctuary, 
and the offerer was not a descendant of Aaron. Thus 
the children of Israel offered sacrifice at Bochini (Judg. 
ii. 5), in a penitential spirit when rebuked for their neg- 
lects of duty by the angel of the Lord. Gideon built 
two altars in Ophrah and offered a bullock upon one of 
them to the Lord (Judg. vi. 21-27). Manoah offered a 
kid in sacrifice upon a rock to the Lord (Judg. xiii. 19). 
This it is said, is in direct violation of the law of Deuter- 
onomy xii. 6, 13, 11, Xumbers xviii. 7, though it accords 
with the prescriptions of the Book of the Covenant, which 
recognizes no separate order of priests, and permits sacri- 
fices (Ex. xx. 21), in all places where the Lord records his 
name. It is hence inferred that the laws of Deuteronomy 
and the Priest code were not in existence, but only the 
Book of the Covenant. 

It has already been shown, however, that there is no 
variance between these laws in respect to the place of 
sacrifice ; and the Aaronic priesthood was not yet insti- 
tuted when the Book of the Covenant was framed. The 
sacrifices at Bochim, and those that were offered by 
Gideon and Manoah are readily accounted for by the ex- 
traordinary circumstances that called them forth. On all 
ordinary occasions the sanctuary was the place for sacri- 
ficial worship and this was to be offered only by the 
priests, who were specially charged with this service. 
But when God manifestecL^himself in an extraordinary 
manner in any place remote from the tabernacle, that 
place became for the time a sanctuary, and the person 
to whom he thus manifested himself became for the time 
a priest. The special prerogative of the priest is that he 



152 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

is authorized to "come near" unto God, Num. iii. 10, 
xvi. 5, 40, Ezek. xliv. 15, 16 ; lie, to whom God visibly ap- 
pears and thus brings him near to himself, is accordingly 
invested temporarily with a sacerdotal character. God 
must be worshipped wherever he appeared, and by 
whomsoever he honored by such special manifestation. 
Accordingly, whenever throughout the book of Judges 
the Loed or the angel of the Lord appeared to men, 
they offered sacrifice on the spot ; and no sacrifices were 
offered elsewhere than at the sanctuary or by any other 
than a priest, except upon the occasion of such a special 
manifestation of the divine presence. 

It is further to be observed that sacrifices might be 
offered anywhere in the presence of the ark of the cove- 
nant. The ark was the symbol of the Lord's presence. 
It was the ark in the tabernacle which made the latter a 
holy place. And when the ark was taken from the tab- 
ernacle, it was still the throne of God, who dwelt between 
the cherubim. "Wherever the ark was, there was the sym- 
bol of God's presence ; and hence when the ark was 
present at Bethel (Judg. xx. 26, 27), or when it came 
back from the Philistines to Beth-shemesh (1 Sam. vi. 
14), sacrifices were offered to the Lord. And so when 
David was transporting the ark to Zion, oxen and fatlings 
were sacrificed before it (2 Sam. vi. 13). 

But we find the prophet Samuel offering sacrifice (1 
Sam. vii. 9, 17) away from the ark and the tabernacle, 
and without any special divine manifestation having been 
made. This was again because of the peculiar circum- 
stances of the case. In consequence of the sins of Eli's 
sons, and in general the wickedness of both priests and 
people, God suffered the sacred ark to be taken captive 
by the Philistines. The removal of the symbol of his 
presence was significant of God's forsaking Shiloh and 
forsaking his people (Ps. lxxviii. 59-61, 67, 68 ; Jer. vii. 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 153 

12; xxvi. 6, 9). The Philistines were compelled by the 
heavy plagues sent upon them to return the ark. But 
the ark was not taken back to Shiloh, which the Lord 
had so signally rejected as his abode. It was hid away 
in the seclusion of a private house until the favor of 
the Lord should again return to his people. God had 
abandoned the sanctuary, and there was thenceforth no 
legitimate sanctuary in Israel until the ark was taken to 
Zion and the Lord chose that for his abode. During 
this period, when Israel was without a divinely sanctioned 
sanctuary, Samuel, as God's prophet and representative, 
by divine authority, assumed the functions of the de- 
generate priesthood, and sacrifices were offered on high 
places. This state of things continued, as we are told 
(1 Kin. iii. 2), until the temple of Solomon was built, 
when that became God's dwelling-place ; and as that was 
the spot which God had chosen to place his name there, 
(1 Kin. viii. 29), it henceforth was the only lawful place of 
sacrifice. We do indeed read after that of offerings made 
on high places, but they were illegal and were regarded 
as such, and pious princes endeavored to suppress them, 
with varying success, until at last Hezekiah, and more 
effectually still, Josiah, succeeded in abolishing them. 

It is confessed, accordingly, that sacrifices were in 
repeated instances offered elsewhere than at the sanctu- 
ary; but whether these were justified by extraordinary 
circumstances, or whether they were irregular and con- 
demned as such, they cannot disprove the existence of 
the law restricting sacrifice to one common altar in all 
ordinary cases. 

It has been maintained on such grounds as have now 
been recited, that the law of Deuteronomy was unknown 
until the time of king Josiah ; that the worship on high 
places continued until his reign — that the prophetic and 
priestly party then became convinced in consequence of 



154 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OE THE PENTATEUCH 

the idolatrous taint which infected the worship on high 
places, and the abuses and excesses prevalent there that 
the purity of religion demanded that they should be 
abolished and sacrifice restricted to the temple at Jeru- 
salem. Accordingly the book of Deuteronomy, which 
strenuously insists upon the overthrow of the high places 
and the confining of sacrifice to the place which the Lord 
should choose, was prepared with the view of legalizing 
this measure and paving the way for its enforcement. 
This was attributed to Moses in order to give it a higher 
sanction. A copy was deposited in the temple, where it 
was found, as it was intended that it should be, by Hil- 
kiah, the high-priest, and taken to the king, who carried 
the projected reform into effect (2 Kin. xxii. 8 ff.). Others, 
who are more reverential, seek to explain the discovery 
of the book and its enforcement as the work of Mosses 
without involving fraud, but with very indifferent suc- 
cess. 

The Priest code, it is alleged, is later still. That was 
the work of Ezra, and was prepared with reference to the 
needs of the period after the exile, and the ritualistic 
spirit which then prevailed. This is the book of the law 
produced by Ezra the scribe and read to the people, as 
recorded in Nehemiah viii., to which they solemnly en- 
gaged to render obedience. This code, however, it is con- 
tended, was not complete even in the days of Ezra. Ad- 
ditions were subsequently made to it, and continued to be 
made for some time thereafter. The day of atonement is 
not mentioned in either Ezra or Nehemiah, and its pecul- 
iar services were introduced at a later date. The altar 
of incense, with the special sacredness attached to the 
offering of incense, indicates, it is said, one of the later 
strata of the Priest code. And from some peculiarities in 
the Greek and Samaritan text of the description of the 
Mosaic tabernacle, it is confidently affirmed that changes 



GENUINENESS OF THE LAWS 155 

and alterations in the Hebrew text continued to be made 
until after the time when those versions were prepared. 

This whole theory of the successive origin and gradual 
growth of the different codes of the Pentateuchal law is 
not only directly in the face of the explicit statements of 
the Pentateuch itself, but is utterly inconsistent with the 
history on which it is professedly based. Both the book 
found in the temple in the reign of Josiah and that 
brought forward and read by Ezra after the exile, are 
expressly declared to have been not recent productions 
but the law of Moses. The assumption that laws were 
fraudulently attributed to the great legislator is gratui- 
tous and without foundation. The idea that such a fraud 
could be successfully perpetrated is preposterous. It is 
utterly out of the question that a body of laws never 
before heard of could be imposed upon the people as 
though they had been given by Moses centuries before, 
and that they could have been accepted and obeyed by 
them, notwithstanding the fact that they imposed new 
and serious burdens, set aside established usages to 
which the people were devotedly attached, and conflicted 
with the interests of numerous and powerful classes of 
the people. And it further involves the incongruity of 
assuming that three codes, which were at variance in 
their provisions, the first having been superseded by the 
second, and the second in turn superseded by the third, 
came subsequently to be regarded as entirely harmoni- 
ous, and as one body of law which had been united from 
the beginning and was all alike obligatory. 

My friend, Professor Zenos, of McCormick Theologi- 
cal Seminary, has directed my attention to the following 
signal instance in modern times of the total oblivion of a 
noted code of laws previously in force. It is thus de- 
scribed by Sir J. Stephen in his " Lectures on the History 
of France," Lecture IV., p. 94 : " When the barbarism of 



156 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

the domestic government (under the Carlovingian dynasty) 
had thus succeeded the barbarism of the government of 
the state, one of the most remarkable results of that po- 
litical change was the disappearance of the laws and insti- 
tutions by which Charlemagne had endeavored to elevate 
and civilize his subjects. Before the close of the century 
in which he died the whole body of his laws had fallen 
into utter disuse throughout the whole extent of his 
Gallic dominions. They who have studied the charters, 
laws, and chronicles of the later Carlovingian princes 
most diligently are unanimous in declaring that they 
indicate either an absolute ignorance or an entire forget- 
fulness of the legislation of Charlemagne." Will the 
critics apply the same rule to Charlemagne that they do 
to Moses, and infer that he never gave the laws attributed 
to him ? 



VI 



THE BEARING OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM ON THE 
CREDIBILITY OF THE PENTATEUCH AND ON SU- 
PERNATURAL RELIGION 

It is noteworthy that the partition hypotheses in all 
their forms have been elaborated from the beginning in 
the interest of unbelief. The unfriendly animus of an 
opponent does not indeed absolve us from patiently and 
candidly examining his arguments, and accepting what- 
ever facts he may adduce, though we are not bound to 
receive his perverted interpretation of them. Neverthe- 
less we cannot intelligently nor safely overlook the palpa- 
ble bias against the supernatural which has infected the 
critical theories which we have been reviewing, from first 
to last. All the acknowledged leaders of the movement 
have, without exception, scouted the reality of miracles 
and prophecy and immediate divine revelation in their 
genuine and evangelical sense. Their theories are all 
inwrought with naturalistic presuppositions, which can- 
not be disentangled from them without their falling to 
pieces. Evangelical scholars in Germany, as elsewhere, 
steadfastly opposed these theories, refuted the arguments 
adduced in their support, and exposed their malign ten- 
dencies. It is only recently that there has been an at- 
tempt at compromise on the part of certain believing 
scholars, who are disposed to accept these critical the- 
ories and endeavor to harmonize them with the Christian 
faith. But the inherent vice in these systems cannot be 
eradicated. The inevitable result has been to lower the 



158 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

Christian faith to the level of these perverted theories 
instead of lifting the latter up to the level of a Christian 
standard. 

CREDIBILITY UNDERMINED. 

According to the critical hypothesis, even in the most 
moderate hands, the situation is this : The Pentateuch, 
instead of being one continuous and self-consistent his- 
tory from the pen of Moses, is made up of four distinct 
documents which have been woven together, but which 
the critics claim that they are able to separate and re- 
store, as far as the surviving remnants of each permit, to 
their original condition. These severally represent the 
traditions of the Mosaic age as they existed six, eight, 
and ton centuries after the Exodus. 1 When these are 
compared they are found to be in perpetual conflict. 
Events wear an entirely different complexion in one from 
that which they have in another; the characters of those 
who appear in them, the motives by which they are actu- 
ated, and the whole impression of the period in which 
they live is entirely different. 

It is very evident from all this why the critics tell us 
that the doctrine of inspiration must be modified. If 
these Pentateuchal documents, as they describe them, 
were inspired, it must have been in a very peculiar sense. 
It is not a question of inerrancy, but of wholesale mutual 
contradiction which quite destroys their credit as truthful 
histories. And these contradictions, be it observed, are 
not in the Pentateuch itself, but result from the mangling 
and the mal-interpretations to which it has been sub- 
jected by the critics. 

On the critical hypothesis the real facts of the history 

1 J and E are commonly referred to the eighth or ninth century B.C.; 
D to the reign of Josiah or shortly before it ; P to the period after the 
Babylonish exile. 



THE BEAEHSTG OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 159 

are not what they seem to be to the ordinary reader. 
They can only be elicited by an elaborate critical process. 
The several documents must first be disentangled and 
carefully compared ; the points in which they agree and 
those in which they differ must be noted. And from this 
conflicting mass of testimony the critic must ascertain, as 
best he may, how much can be relied upon as true, how 
much has a certain measure of probability, and how much 
must be rejected altogether. 

Another element of precariousness enters into the criti- 
cal attempts to distinguish what is reliable from what is 
not, in the Pentateuchal narratives. By the confession 
of the critics themselves, and by the necessity of their 
hypothesis, the documents which they fancy that they 
have discovered are by no means complete. By singling 
out the paragraphs and clauses which are regarded as 
belonging to each of the documents severall}', and putting 
them together, they undertake the reconstruction of the 
original documents, which are supposed in the first in- 
stance to have circulated separately as distinct and in- 
dependent publications, but to have been subsequently 
fused together into the Pentateuch, as we now possess it, 
by a series of redactors. First, the two oldest docu- 
ments, J and E, were combined, and the combination 
was effected, it is supposed, by the following method : 
sections or paragraphs, longer or shorter, were taken 
alternately from J and from E, and pieced together so 
as to form one continuous narrative. It was the purpose 
of the redactor to make the best use that he possibly 
could of these two sources at his command in preparing 
a history of the period of which they treat. In some 
cases he made full extracts from both his sources of all 
that they contained, and preserved the language of each 
unaltered, making no additions or modifications of his 
own. Frequently, however, it was necessary to adjust 



160 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

what was thus taken from different works, in order to 
make it read smoothly, or to render it harmonious. 
Hence, upon occasion he introduced explanatory remarks, 
or made such changes as seemed to be required in what 
he borrowed from J or from E. Sometimes his sources 
were so nearly parallel that it would lead to needless 
repetition to use them both. In such cases, accordingly, 
he confined himself to the account given in one of the 
documents, either omitting the 'corresponding statements 
of the other altogether, or weaving in a clause or a sen- 
tence here and there when it seemed to him distinctive 
and important. Again, cases occur in which the narra- 
tives of J and E were in real or apparent conflict. Here 
he does the best that he can. He either undertakes to 
harmonize their accounts, where this is possible, by in- 
serting some statement which seems to reconcile them, 
by so changing the order of the narrative as to relieve 
the difficulty, or by converting inconsistent accounts of 
the same event into two different transactions. Where 
none of these methods is practicable, and reconciliation 
is out of the question, the redactor adheres to one of his 
sources and disregards the other. 

D, which was composed some time after this union of 
JE, existed for a while as an independent work, and was 
then combined with JE by a new redactor, who, besides 
attaching D to this previously existing work, retouched 
JE in several places, and introduced a number of pas- 
sages from his own point of view, which was different 
from that of the older historians. 

Finally the document P was prepared, at first as a 
separate publication, but at length it was interwoven by 
a third redactor with the pre-existing triplicate treatise 
JED, the process being substantially the same as has 
already been described in the case of JE. 

This is in general the method by which the critics sup- 



THE BEARING OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 161 

pose that the Pentateuch was gradually brought to its 
present form. It will be seen at a glance how the com- 
plexity of the critical problem is increased by the succes- 
sive editorial labors which are supposed to have been 
brought into requisition in the course of the construction 
of the Pentateuch. The several documents must not only 
be distinguished from each other, but also from the vari- 
ous redactional additions and insertions which have at 
any time been made. 

Let us assume that this delicate and difficult analysis 
has been effected with unfailing accuracy notwithstand- 
ing the liabilities to error vitiating the result, which in- 
crease at every step. But waiving this, what is the situa- 
tion when the analysis has been accomplished ? and what 
is its bearing upon the historical character of the Penta- 
teuch ? 

The critics have undertaken to reproduce for us the 
documents J, E, D, and P, which are our primary sources 
for both the Mosaic and the patriarchal history, and 
which date respectively six, eight, and ten centuries after 
the Exodus. These documents are not only at variance 
with each other in their statements respecting numerous 
particulars, thus invalidating each other's testimony and 
showing that the traditions which they have severally 
followed are mutually inconsistent ; but they are besides 
very incomplete. Numerous gaps and omissions occur 
in each. Matter which they once contained, as is evident 
from allusions still found in them, is now missing ; how 
much it is impossible to tell. 

But what is more serious, the parts that yet remain 
have been manipulated by the various redactors. The 
order of events has been disturbed ; events really distinct 
have been confused and mistaken for one and the same ; 
and narratives of the same event have been mistaken for 
events altogether distinct ; statements which are mislead- 
11 



162 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

ing have been inserted with the view of harmonizing 
what cannot in fact be reconciled ; when traditions vary, 
instead of being recorded in their integrity to afford some 
opportunity of ascertaining the truth by comparison, 
they have either been mingled together, thus disturbing 
both, or one only has been preserved, thus leaving no 
check upon its inaccuracies. All this and more, the 
critics tell us, the several redactors have done with their 
materials. No charge is made of dishonest intentions. 
But surely it is most unfortunate for the historical value 
of their work. There is no way of ascertaining how far 
these materials have been warped from their proper orig- 
inal intent by the well-meant but mistaken efforts of the 
redactors to correct or to harmonize them. That their 
meaning has been seriously altered in repeated instances, 
which are pointed out by the critics, creates a very 
natural presumption that like changes have been freely 
made elsewhere which can now no longer be detected. 

It is difficult to understand in what sense the redac- 
tors, whose work has been described, can be said to have 
been inspired. They certainly had no inspiration which 
preserved them from error, or even from making the 
gravest historical mistakes. They had no such inspira- 
tion as gives any divine attestation to their work. The 
Pentateuchal history gathers no confirmation from having 
passed through their hands. 

Upon the theory of the most conservative of the divi- 
sive critics, for it is this with which we have been deal- 
ing, what dependence can be placed upon the historical 
statements of the Pentateuch ? These are, as they allege, 
inaccurate and inconsistent with themselves not in the 
patriarchal period merely, but throughout the lifetime of 
Moses, when the foundation was laid of the Old Testa- 
ment religion and those signal miracles were wrought 
which gave it undeniable divine sanction. The real facts 



THE BEARING OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 163 

are not those which appear upon the surface. They can 
only be elicited by an elaborate critical process which 
shall detect and remove the mistaken additions and at- 
tempted emendations of each of the redactors, and shall 
then restore the four documents to their pristine condi- 
tion, so far as what remains of each will allow. This 
Avill put the critic in possession of a mutilated record of 
four variant traditions of the Mosaic age, as these existed 
six, eight, and ten centuries after that date. And now it 
is by the help of such materials in the way of compar- 
ison, correction, and elimination that he must sift out 
and ascertain the real facts. Must we not say that 
the history of the Mosaic age, if this be the only way 
of arriving at it, rests upon a quicksand? and that 
nothing of any consequence can be certainly known re- 
garding it ? 

Here is no question merely of the strict inerrancy of 
Scripture, of absolute accuracy in unimportant minutiae, 
of precision in matters of science. This is not the issue 
raised by the theorizing of that class of biblical critics 
with which we contend. And it is no mere question of 
the mode of inspiration. But it is the question whether 
any dependence can be placed upon the historical truth 
of the Bible ; whether our confidence in the facts re- 
corded in the Pentateuch rests upon any really trust- 
worthy basis ; facts, be it observed, not of mere scientific 
or antiquarian interest, but which mark the course of 
God's revelations to the patriarchs and to Moses. It is the 
certainty of facts which are vital to the religion of the Old 
Testament, and the denial of whose truth weakens the 
foundations on which the New Testament itself is built. 
The critical theory which we have been examining is de- 
structive of all rational certainty of the reality of these 
truths ; and thus tends to overturn the historical basis of 
the religion of the Bible. 



164 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 
UNFRIENDLY TO REVEALED RELIGION 

It is no merely literary question, then, which this style 
of criticism raises. It is not simply whether the Penta- 
teuch was written by one author or another, while its his- 
toric truth and its divine authority remain unaffected. 
The truth and evidence of the entire Mosaic history are 
at stake. And with this stands or falls the reality of 
God's revelation to Moses and the divine origin of the 
Old Testament. And this again is not only vouched for 
and testified to by our divine Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ and his inspired apostles, but upon this the Lord 
Jesus bases his own claims. Moses wrote of him. The 
predictions uttered and recorded by Moses speak of 
Christ. The types, of which both the Pentateuchal his- 
tory and the Mosaic institutions are full, point to Christ. 
But if the predictions are not genuine, and the history is 
untrue, and the institutions were not ordained of God, 
but are simply the record of priestly usage, what becomes 
of the witness which they bear to Christ ? And must 
not the religion of the Old Testament sink in our esteem 
from a religion directly revealed of God to one which is 
the outgrowth of the Israelitish mind and heart, under an 
uplifting influence from above, it may be, but still pro- 
ceeding from man, not from God ? It is then based not 
on positive truth authoritatively communicated from God 
to man, but on the aspirations and reflections, the yearn- 
ings and longings and spiritual struggles of devout and 
holy men seeking after God, with such divine guidance 
and inward illumination as good men in every age may 
enjoy, but that is all. There is no direct revelation, no 
infallible inspiration, no immediate and positive disclos- 
ure of the mind and will of God. 

The religion of the Bible is not merely one of abstract 
doctrines respecting God. It does not consist merely in 



THE BEARING OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 165 

monotheism, nor in right notions of the being and per- 
fections of God as abstract truths. Nor does it consist 
merely in devout emotions and aspirations toward the 
Divine Being. But both its doctrines and its practical 
piety are based on positive disclosures which God has 
made of himself in his dealings with men and his com- 
munications to them. It is a historical religion based 
on palpable outstanding facts, in which God has mani- 
fested himself, and by which he has put himself in liv- 
ing relation to men. Appeal is throughout made to the 
mighty deeds and the great wonders wrought by his 
uplifted hand and his outstretched arm in evidence that 
it is the almighty God who has acted and spoken and 
revealed himself, and no mere human imaginings. To 
discredit these biblical statements is to discredit the 
biblical revelation. And this is what is done through- 
out the entire Mosaic period, not by Kuenen and Well- 
hausen and Stade and Cornill merely, who are avowed 
unbelievers in a supernatural revelation, but by those 
likewise who claim to be evangelical critics. 

It is notorious that the long succession of distinguished 
scholars, by whom the divisive hypothesis has been elab- 
orated in its application to the Pentateuch, have been un- 
believers in an immediate supernatural revelation. And 
they have not hesitated to avow their want of faith in the 
reality of prophetic foresight and of miraculous powers. 
The ready method by which these have been set aside 
is by dexterous feats of criticism. Bevelations of truth 
and duty are brought down to such a period in the his- 
tory as may fit in with some imagined naturalistic scheme 
of development. Predictions which have been too accu- 
rately fulfilled to be explained away as vague anticipa- 
tions, shrewd calculations, or lucky guesses, must, as 
they claim, have been uttered, or at least committed to 
writing, after the event. Miracles cannot have* been 



166 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OP THE PENTATEUCH 

recorded by eye-witnesses or contemporaries, but are 
regarded as legendary exaggerations of events that are 
entirely explicable from natural causes. It is therefore 
assumed that they necessarily hnply a sufficient interval 
between the occurrence and the written narrative to ac- 
count for the growth of the story. A hypothesis wrought 
out on the basis of these principles, which are through- 
out covertly assumed, and the critical phenomena most 
ingeniously adjusted into conformity with them, can lead 
to no other result than that with reference to which it 
was shaped from the beginning. While the discussion 
seemingly turns on words and phrases and the supposed 
peculiarities of individual writers, the bent of the whole 
thing is to rivet the conclusion which the framers of the 
hypothesis have tacitly though steadily contemplated, a 
conclusion irrefragable on their philosophical principles, 
viz., that the supernatural must be eliminated from the 
Scriptures. And hence the hypothesis is at this time 
one of the most potent weapons in the hands of unbelief. 
Supernatural facts, which stand unshaken in the Mosaic 
records like granite mountains, impregnable to all other 
methods of attack, dissolve like wax in the critics' cru- 
cible. 

Keal discoveries are not, of course, to be discredited 
because of false principles that are entertained by the 
discoverers, or wrong motives that may have influenced 
them. If unbelievers in divine inspiration by their 
learned investigations can assist us in the elucidation or 
more correct appreciation of the sacred writings in any 
respect, we welcome their aid with all our hearts. But 
all is not gold that glitters. And there can be no impro- 
priety in subjecting novelties to careful scrutiny, before 
we adopt conclusions at war with our most cherished con- 
victions and with what we hold to be well-established 
truths. The apostle's maxim applies here, "Prove all 



THE BEARING OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 167 

things ; hold fast that which is good." The recent ac- 
ceptance of this hypothesis by men of high standing in 
evangelical circles does not rob it of the pernicious ten- 
dencies inwrought in its whole texture, and will not pre- 
vent the full development of these tendencies, if it shall 
ever gain prevalence. 

One very momentous consequence of the adoption of 
this hypothesis is palpable upon its surface. It nullifies 
at once the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and 
substitutes anonymous documents of late age in an im- 
perfect state of preservation, which have been woven 
together, and to some extent modified, by anonymous re- 
dactors. It is at once obvious what a vast diminution 
hence results in the external guarantee of the truth of 
the record. If Moses himself committed to writing the 
events in which he bore so conspicuous a part, and the 
laws and institutions enacted by him, and this product 
of Moses's own pen has been preserved to us in the Pen- 
tateuch, we have a voucher of the very first order of the 
accuracy of the narrative, in every particular, proceeding 
as it does not only from a contemporary and eye-witness 
cognizant of every detail, but from the leader and legis- 
lator whose genius shaped all that he records, and who 
was more than any other interested in its true and faith- 
ful transmission. 

It would be a relief if these anonymous sources were 
the work of contemporaries and participants in the events 
recorded. If, as Delitzsch assumed when he first suffered 
himself to be captivated by the hypothesis, Eleazar or 
Joshua, or men of like stamp with them, were the authors 
of the documents, and these were put together in the age 
immediately succeeding that of Moses, it might seem as 
though this would afford abundant assurance of the truth 
of their statements. But who is to assure us that Elea- 
zar or any of his compeers had a hand in these records ? 



168 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

If we abandon the Mosaic authorship, which is so explic- 
itly and repeatedly certified by the earliest tradition 
that we are able to summon, we are out upon the open 
sea with nothing to direct our course. Nothing can dis- 
prove its composition by Moses which does not disprove 
its origin in the Mosaic age. All thought of its proceed- 
ing from the pen of contemporaries must then be aban- 
doned. We go blindly groping along the centuries in 
quest of authors. All is unwarranted conjecture ; there 
is no firm lodgement anywhere. The notion that the 
authors of these so-called documents, or the redactors 
who compiled the Pentateuch from them, can be identi- 
fied in the absence of any ancient testimony pointing to 
another than Moses is utterly groundless. 

But if the authors of the several documents were infal- 
libly inspired, and if the redactors were likewise divinely 
guarded from error, would we not then have a perfectly 
trustworthy record, as much so though it were produced 
in a comparatively late age, as if it had been contempo- 
raneous with the events themselves ? This fond fancy is 
dispelled the moment we come to examine the actual 
working of the hypothesis, as this has been abundantly 
exhibited in the preceding pages. It is constructed on 
the assumption not merely of the fallibility but the fal- 
sity of the documents, whose accounts are represented to ' 
be not merely divergent but contradictory ; upon the as- 
sumption likewise of the incompetency of the redactors, 
even if they are charged with nothing worse. They mis- 
understand their authorities, and, to say the least, unin- 
tentionally pervert them, ascribing to them a meaning 
foreign to their original and proper intent. The Penta- 
teuch is thus held to be based upon conflicting narratives, 
written several centuries after the occurrences which 
they profess to relate, and embodying the diverse tradi- 
tions which had meanwhile grown up respecting them. 



THE BEARING OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 169 

These the redactors have undertaken to harmonize, 
though they were, so the critics affirm, mutually incon- 
sistent. They have done this by rearrangements and 
additions of their own that obscure and alter their real 
meaning. The critics accordingly tell us that the Pen- 
tateuch on its face yields a very incorrect representation 
of what actually took place in the time to which it re- 
lates. The only way to reach the real facts is to undo 
the work of the redactors, eliminate their misleading ad- 
ditions, and restore, as far as possible, the documents 
to the condition in which they were before they were 
meddled with. This will put us in possession of the 
discordant traditions which had arisen in the course of 
centuries respecting the events in question. The com- 
parison of these traditions will yield a modicum of truth 
upon the subject, and the rest must be left to con- 
jecture. 

And this, be it remembered, is a part of the canon of 
Scripture, the part, in fact, which lies at the foundation 
of the whole, that Scripture, which according to our 
blessed Lord cannot be broken, and which according to 
the apostle Paul is given by inspiration of God. Is 
it surprising that they who accept this hypothesis insist 
that the current doctrine of Scripture and of divine 
inspiration requires revision ? 

The extent to which the Mosaic history crumbles 
away under such treatment as has been illustrated above, 
varies with different critics. To Kuenen and Wellhausen 
it is utterly untrustworthy. Others recoil from such un- 
sparing demolition, and allow more or less to stand un- 
challenged. But this difference of result is due to the 
subjective state of the critic himself, not to any clear 
and intelligible ground in the nature of the case. The 
whole process is vicious. The claim is preposterous that 
a consistent and continuous narrative may be rent apart 



170 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

ad libitum, and meanings assigned to isolated portions, 
which the words might admit if viewed independently, 
but which are impossible in the connection. Yet this 
lies for the most part at the basis of the divisive criticism, 
determines generally the line of fracture, and imparts to 
the whole subject nearly all of its interest and importance 
in the view of its adherents. Even if the partition hy- 
pothesis were well founded and the documents, of which 
the critics speak so confidently, had a real and separate 
existence, the redactors who had them in their orig- 
inal completeness were much more competent to judge 
of their true meaning than modern critics, who by their 
own confession possess them only in a fragmentary and 
mutilated condition, and so blended together that it is 
extremely difficult, and often quite impossible, to disen- 
tangle them with certainty and accuracy. Under these 
circumstances to deal with the Pentateuch in its present 
form in a manner which implies either mistake or mis- 
representation on the part of the redactors is gratuitous 
and inadmissible unless on the clearest and most unmis- 
takable evidence. 

It is nevertheless a fundamental assumption in the lit- 
erary partition of the Pentateuch, that the redactors have 
misunderstood or misrepresented their sources ; that nar- 
ratives, which were but varying accounts of the same 
thing, were supposed by them to relate to distinct occur- 
rences, and they have treated them as such, wrongly as- 
signing them to different occasions and perhaps different 
persons ; that they have combined their sources in such 
a way as to give a wrong coloring to their contents, so 
that they make a false impression and convey a mean- 
ing quite different from that which properly belonged to 
them in their original connection. And the chief value 
and interest of the critic is thought to be the new light 
which he brings into the narrative and the altered mean- 



THE BEAEHSTG OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 171 

ing which he discovers by undoing the work of the redac- 
tors, who are supposed to have cut away much precious 
material from their documents that is now irrecoverably 
lost, and to have modified even the mutilated remnant 
which they have handed down to us. Unless this be so, 
what is gained by the partition ? If everything means just 
what it did before, what good has been accomplished ? 
If, on the other hand, the meaning has been altered, the 
question returns, Which is right and which is the bet- 
ter entitled to our confidence, the redactors who had 
ample means of knowing what they were doing, or the 
modern critic who relies upon his conjectures for his 
facts? 

A yet more serious aspect of this literary partition is 
that there is no limit to it. If the door be opened even 
on a crack to admit it, all is at the mercy of what there 
is no means of controlling ; and nothing can prevent the 
door being flung as wide open as the hinges will allow. 
The appetite for division and subdivision grows by every 
concession made to quiet it. The analysis of Wellhau- 
sen, of Dillinann, of Julicher, and of Stade shows that 
we have not yet reached the beginning of the end. 
Fresh seams are constantly discovered in what critics 
themselves have previously regarded as indivisible ; 
fresh errors and mistakes are discovered in the narra- 
tive that were never suspected before ; and the whole be- 
comes the plaything of the critic's fancy. The advocates 
of literary partition among us at present may stand on 
comparatively conservative ground under the influence 
of their own past training and of cherished principles, 
which they are unwilling to abandon. But what is to 
hinder their followers, who are not similarly anchored, 
from pursuing this partition to its legitimate conse- 
quences ? It is the first step that costs. And the ini- 
tial step in this partition is the admission of the un- 



172 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

trustworthiness of the sacred record as it now stands, 
and the necessity of transposition, alteration, and recon- 
struction in order to reach the real truth. After this in- 
itial admission has been made, everything further is but 
a question of degrees. The Scripture is no longer relia- 
ble in its present form. The inspiration of its writers 
has been surrendered. We have lost our infallible guide. 
And distrust may be carried to any length that the in- 
ward disposition of the operator inclines him to indulge 
it. In yielding the principle everything has been con- 
ceded that is involved in it and follows from it. The 
avalanche cannot be arrested midway in its descent. 

The Pentateuch in its unity and integrity is impregna- 
ble to hostile assaults. But accept the partition of it 
which the critics offer, and the truth and inspiration of 
this portion of Holy Scripture no longer rest upon any 
solid basis. 

DEISM, RATIONALISM, DIVISIVE CELTICISM. 

The study of the Bible on its purely literary side has 
many and strong attractions for men of letters. It re- 
cords the history and the institutions of a most remark- 
able people. It gives an insight into their character and 
usages, into their domestic, social, and political life ; 
particularly it exhibits their religion in its spirit and its 
outward forms, a religion altogether unique in the ancient 
world, and the influence of which has been deep and 
wide-spread in later times. It contains all that has been 
preserved of their literary products through a long series 
of ages, including narratives of tender and touching in- 
terest, of deeds of heroic valor, of wise administration, of 
resolute adherence to right and duty under trying cir- 
cumstances ; poetic effusions of rare beauty, of exalted 
genius, on the most elevated themes, wise sayings, the 



THE BEARING OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 173 

utterance of sages or embodying profound and extensive 
observation ; the discourses of the prophets, haranguing 
kings and people in great critical conjunctures with im- 
passioned patriotism and the noblest impulses, inculcat- 
ing and enforcing the loftiest principles of action. There 
is much in all this to stir the enthusiasm and excite the 
interest of those who are engaged in literary pursuits. 

It is not strange, then, that in the revival of letters, 
when the stores of ancient learning were thrown open to 
the gaze of the modern world, and men sat delighted be- 
fore the masterpieces of Greece and Rome and the Orient, 
they should be charmed likewise by the fascinations of 
Hebrew literature. Scholars were drawn with equal rel- 
ish to the songs of Horace, of Pindar, and of David ; 
they listened admiringly alike to the eloquent and burn- 
ing words of Cicero, Demosthenes, and Isaiah. The 
Bible was scanned with avidity as the extant body of 
Israel's literature ; just that and nothing more. It was a 
most engaging study. It was expounded and illustrated 
and commented on from professors' chairs and in numer- 
ous volumes, precisely as the works of historians, poets, 
philosophers, and orators of other lands. But, with all 
the admiration that was bestowed upon it, the unique 
character of its claims was lost sight of. Its inspiration 
and divine authority did not enter into the account. The 
immediate voice and hand of God, which rule in the 
whole, were overlooked. 

It is easy to see how the study of the Bible thus pur- 
sued would necessarily be warped. Treated as a purely 
human product, it must be reduced to the level of that 
which it was esteemed to be. The supernatural must be 
eliminated from it, since it was regarded as the resultant 
of purely human forces. And stripped of the super- 
natural, the Bible becomes a totally different book. 
There are three evident indications of God's immediate 



174 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

presence, which pervade the Scriptures from beginning 
to end, and are inwrought into its entire structure, and 
with which they must reckon who recognize in its con- 
tents merely that which is natural and human. These 
are miracle, prophecy, and revealed truth. The pages of 
the Bible are ablaze with recorded facts involving the 
immediate exercise of almighty power, with predictive 
utterances unveiling the future hid from mortal view, 
and with disclosures which quite transcend the reach of 
the human faculties. No man can undertake the study 
of the Bible, however superficially, without encountering 
these, which are among its most prominent features. 
And if it is to be comprehended from a naturalistic point 
of view, they must in some way be disposed of. 

Three different methods have been devised for getting 
rid of these troublesome factors. One is that of a scoff- 
ing deism, which sets aside the supernatural by imputing 
it to deception and priestcraft. It is all held to be trace- 
able to impositions practised upon the credulity of the 
uninstructed vulgar in order to exalt the ministers of 
religion in their eyes, perhaps for the promotion of selfish 
ends, perhaps with the worthier motive of obtaining sanc- 
tion for useful institutions or gaining credence for valu- 
able teachings, which they could not otherwise have been 
induced so easily to receive. It is only men who are 
devoid of moral earnestness themselves, and cannot 
appreciate moral earnestness in others, who can rest 
satisfied with such an explanation. It is so manifestly 
opposed to the whole spirit and tenor of the sacred writ- 
ings, and to the character of the great leaders of Israel, 
that it has never had any prevalence among those who 
had any sympathy with, or a just conception of, the men of 
the Bible. It was soon cast off,^ therefore, by those who 
made any pretension to real scholarship, and left to 
frivolous scoffers. 



THE BEARING OF THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 175 

A second mode of dealing with the supernatural, with- . 
out admitting its reality, is that of the old rationalistic 
exegesis. This regards it simply as oriental exaggera- 
tion. It is looked upon as the habit of the period to 
think and speak in superlatives, and to employ grandilo- 
quent figures and forms of expression. In order to as- 
certain the actual meaning of the writer these must be 
reduced to the proportion of ordinary events. Thus 
Eichhorn, the father of the higher criticism, had no dif- 
ficulty in accepting the Mosaic authorship of the Penta- 
teuch, and defending its credibility, while at the same 
time he discarded the miraculous. This work, he con- 
tended, must be interpreted in accordance with the spirit 
of the age to which it belonged. Its poetic embellish- 
ments must not be mistaken for plain prose, and its bold 
figures must not be converted into literal statements. 
When the oriental imagery is duly estimated, and the 
elaborate drapery in which the imaginative writer has 
dressed his thought is stripped off, it will be found that 
his real meaning does not transcend what is purely nat- 
ural. There was nothing miraculous about the plagues 
of Egypt ; it was only an annus mirabilis, a year of ex- 
traordinary occurrences, remarkable in their number and 
severity, but wholly traceable to natural causes. There 
was nothing miraculous in the passage of the Red Sea, 
or the events at Sinai, or in what took place during the 
forty years in the desert. The apparently miraculous 
features belong merely to the style of description, not to 
the facts described. There was in this no intentional 
falsehood, no attempt to deceive. It was the well-under- 
stood way of writing and speaking in that age. And 
thus the supernatural is evaporated by hermeneutical 
rules. But this unnatural style of interpretation could 
not long maintain itself. The attempt to reduce heathen 
myths to intelligible history, and to bring down the mir- 



176 THE HIGHEE CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

acles of the Bible to the level of ordinary occurrences, 
proved alike abortive. The hypothesis of rhetorical ex- 
aggeration, fashionable as it was at one time, was accord- 
ingly abandoned. The rule of common-sense must be 
applied to Scripture as to any other book, that the writer 
must be understood to mean what he says, not what some 
interpreter may fancy that he ought to have said. 

The third mode of banishing the supernatural from the 
Bible is by subjecting it to the processes of the higher 
criticism. This is the most plausible as well as the most 
effective method of accomplishing this result. It is the 
most plausible because the animus of the movement is 
concealed, and the desired end is reached not by aiming 
at it directly and avowedly, but as the apparently inci- 
dental consequence of investigations pursued professedly 
for a different purpose. And it is the most effective be- 
cause it supplies a complete antidote for the supernatural 
in each of its forms. Every reported miracle is met by 
the allegation that the record dates centuries after its 
supposed occurrence, leaving ample time for the legend- 
ary amplification of natural events. Every prediction 
which has been so accurately fulfilled that it cannot be 
explained away as a vague anticipation, shrewd conject- 
ure, or fortunate coincidence, is met by the allegation 
that it was not committed to writing till after the 
event. Revelations of truth in advance of what the un- 
aided faculties of men could be supposed to have at- 
tained to must be reconstructed into accordance with 
the requirements of a gradual scheme of development. 
The stupendous miracles of the Mosaic period, the far- 
reaching predictions of the Pentateuch, and its minute 
and varied legislation are all provided for by the critical 
analysis, which parts it into separate documents and as- 
signs these documents severally, to six, eight, and ten 
centuries after the exodus from Egypt. 



THE BEARING OE THE DIVISIVE CRITICISM 177 

These critical results are based professedly on purely 
literary grounds, on diction and style and correspondence 
with historical surroundings. And yet he who traces 
the progress of critical opinion will discover that these 
are invariably subordinated to the end of neutralizing the 
supernatural, and that they are so managed as to lead up 
to this conclusion. The development of critical hypothe- 
ses inimical to the genuineness and the truth of the books 
of the Bible has from the beginning been in the hands 
of those who were antagonistic to supernatural religion, 
whose interest in the Bible was purely literary, and who 
refused to recognize its claims as an immediate and 
authoritative revelation from God. These hypotheses, 
which are largely speculative and conjectural, are to a 
great extent based upon and shaped by unproved assump- 
tions of the falsity of positive scriptural statements. 
They are in acknowledged variance with the historical 
truth of much of the Bible, and require, as is freely con- 
fessed, the complete reconstruction of the sacred history. 
They require us to suppose that the course of events 
and the progress of divine revelation mnst throughout 
have been very different from the representations of the 
Bible. 

Within a very few years professedly evangelical men 
have ventured upon the hazardous experiment of at- 
tempting a compromise in this matter. They propose 
to accept these hypotheses in spite of their antibibli- 
cal character, in spite of their incompatibility with the 
historical truth of the Bible, in spite of their contraven- 
ing its explicit statements, in spite of the grave questions 
which they raise respecting the fallibility of our Lord's 
own teaching ; and they expect to retain their Christian 
faith with only such modifications as these newly adopted 
hypotheses may require. They are now puzzling them- 
selves over the problem of harmonizing Christ's sanction 
12 



178 THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE PENTATEUCH 

given to false views respecting the Old Testament with 
implicit faith in him as a divine teacher. And some of 
them in their perplexity over this enigma come perilously 
near impairing the truth of his claims. Would it not 
be wiser for them to revise their own ill-judged alliance 
with the enemies of evangelical truth, and inquire whether 
Christ's view of the Old Testament may not, after all, be 
the true view ? 



INDEX 



Abex Ezra, 47 

Abraham, 24 

Agreement of critics not a proof 
of their correctness, 130, 131 

Amos, allusions to the Penta- 
teuch, 56-58, note 

Anachronisms alleged, 47-49 ; 
answered, 50, 51 ; suspected in 
the Jehovist, 69 

Ancient heretics, why they de- 
nied Moses's authorship, 47 

Antediluvian period, the aim of, 
20, 21 

Aramean, Jewish, in the Old 
Testament, 1 

Arguments in support of the 
divisive hypotheses, 63-67; 
shown to be fallacious, 88-118, 
132 

Ark of the Covenant, sacrifices 
legitimate where it was pres- 
ent, 152 

Astruc, 62 and note 

Augustin, 63, note 

Bacon, B. "W., 142, note 
Balaam, divine names in the his- 
tory of, 97, 98 
Bancroft, illustration from, 60 
Beattie, Professor P. R, 143, 

note 
Bible studied merely as liter- 
ature, regardless of its divine 
authority, 173 
Bissell, 142, note, 143, note 



Bleek, 76 and note 

Boehmer, 83, note 

Boethius, 129, note 

Book of the Covenant, 36, 136- 
139, 144, 146, 147, 149 

Books of the Old Testament, the 
function of each, 4 ; triple di- 
vision of, 4, 5 

Bredenkamp, 142, note 

Briggs, Professor, 142, note 

Caesar's Commentaries, 129, 
note 

Cain and his descendants, 22, 23 

Carpzov, 49 

Caspari, 56, note 

Cave, Dr. A., 143, note 

Chambers, Dr. T. W., 143, note 

Charlemagne, early oblivion of 
his laws, 155, 156 

Chasms in the so-called docu- 
ments, 107, 108, 161 

Christ's testimony to Moses's au- 
thorship, 32 ; depreciated by 
critics, 33, 177 ; by Le Clerc, 
49 

Chronicles, why in the third di- 
vision of the canon, 5, 6 

Cicero's orations pronounced for- 
geries, 127, note, 128, 129 

Complexity of the critical prob- 
lem, 117 

Conflicting criteria, how evaded, 
116 

Continuity of documents as an 



180 



INDEX 



argument for partition, 64 ; 
discussed, 106-109 

Cornill, 142, note, 165 

Credibility of the Pentateuch as 
affected by its authorship, 32, 
167 ; undermined by the par- 
tition hypotheses, 158-163, 169 

Crystallization hypothesis, 81, 
82 

Daniel, why in the third divi- 
sion of the canon, 5 

Deism, 174 

Delitzsch, 130, 142, note, 167 

Deuteronomic code, 36, 37, 136- 
139, 145, 148, 153 ; its preface 
and sequel, 41 

Deuteronomj 7 , analysis of, 28 ; 
extent of the law to which it 
alludes, 37, note 

Development hypothesis, 136- 
155 ; revolutionized critical 
opinions, 143 ; antagonizes 
statements of Scripture, 144- 
146 ; assumes discrepancies 
which do not exist, 147-149 ; 
based on violations of law 
which are otherwise explained, 
150-153 ; involves gratuitous 
assumptions of fraud, 154, 155, 
and other impossible supposi- 
tions, 155 

De Wette, 76, 77, note 

Diction, diversity of, 65, 66, 113- 
117 

Dillmann, 109, 112, 115, 130, 
131, 142, note, 171 

Distinct events wrongly identi- 
fied, 109, 110 

Diversity of style, diction, and 
ideas made an argument for 
partition, 65-67 ; discussed, 
113-117 

Divine institutions in the antedi- 



luvian and postdiluvian pe- 
riods, 23 

Divine names made an argument 
for partition, 63 ; discussed, 
89 sqq. ; their alternation not 
explicable by the partition hy- 
potheses, 89-99 ; but by their 
signification and usage, 102- 
105 ; and the discretion of the 
writer, 106 

Divisive criticism inimical to 

« credibility and to supernatural 
religion, 157-177 

Document hypothesis, 61-71 ; 
how related to Moses's author- 
ship, 67, 68 ; tendency to sub- 
division, 72, 73, 171 ; modified 
by Hupfeld, 82, 83 

Documents, so-called, not con- 
tinuous, 106-108, 161 ; mutu- 
ally dependent, 109 ; alleged 
to be inconsistent with each 
other, 161, 162 ; not infallibly 
inspired, 168 

Doublets, so-called, 112 

Drechsler, 81 and note 

Driver, Dr., 130, 142, note 

Egyptian allusions in the Pen- 
tateuch, 45 

Eichhorn, 62 and note 

Elementary character of the 
teachings of the Pentateuch, 
45 

Ellicott, Bishop, 143, note 

Elohim in Jehovist sections, 91 
sqq. ; its signification and us- 
age, 102-105 

Ewald, 76 and note, 81, 82, note, 
87, 134, 135 

Exodus, analysis of, 25, 26 ; chj, 
vi. 3, 68, 99, 100 

Forged codes of laws could not 



INDEX 



181 



have been imposed on the peo- 
ple, 42, 155 

Fragment hypothesis, 71-74 ; its 
absurdity shown, 74-76 

French, Dr. R. V., 143, note 

Genesis, analysis of, 21-25 ; ch. 

iv. 26, 100, 102 
Genuineness of the laws, 134- 

156 
Goethe's Faust, prologue of, 130 
Gospel harmony, illustration 

from, 60 
Graf, 140, 141 
Gramberg, 62, note 
Greek, the language of the New 

Testament, 1 
Grounds of literary partition 

considered, 88-118 

Hartmann, 71 and note 

Havernick, 56, note, 81 and note 

Hebrew, the language of the Old 
Testament, 1 

Heinrici, 129 

Hengstenberg, 58, note, 81 and 
note, 103, 104 

Hexateuch, in what sense appro- 
priate, 15 

High places illegal, 153 

Higher criticism as a mode of 
eliminating the supernatural, 
176, 177 

Historical books, their place in 
the plan of the Old Testament, 
8, 9, 14 

Historical passages attributed to 
Moses, 37, 38 

History of the Pentateuch pre- 
paratory for the law, 19 ; be- 
gins with the creation, 21 ; 
chasms only apparent, 29 ; by 
the same author as the law, 



Hoedemaker, Dr., 143, note 

Hoffmann, 142, note 

Holzinger, 142, note 

Homer, 127 

Horace, 129, note 

Hosea, allusions to the Penta- 
teuch, 56-58, note 

Hupfeld, 82 and note, 87, 134, 
135 

Hypothesis bolstered up by in- 
ferences from itself, 92 

Ideas, diversity of, as an argu- 
ment for partition, 65-67, 113 
sqq. 

Ugen, 83, note 

Incongruities in the partition of 
the Pentateuch, 125, 126 

Inerrancy in minutiae not the is- 
sue raised by divisive critics, 
163 

Inspiration, a new doctrine of, 
demanded by the critics, 169 

Isaac ben Jasos, 47 

Isaiah, allusions to the Penta- 
teuch, 54, 55, note 

Jehovah in Elohist sections, 91 
sqq. ; the name alleged to be 
unknown to the patriarchs, 99- 
101 ; its signification and us- 
age, 102-105 

Jehovist of the supplementary 
hypothesis self-contradictory, 
78-80 

Jeremiah, allusions to the Pen- 
tateuch, 55, note 

Jerome, not indifferent to Moses's 
authorship, 47 

Joel, allusions to the Pentateuch, 
54, note 

Josephus, canon of, 6 

Joshua, its place in the plan of 
the Old Testament, 15 



182 



INDEX 



Judges, allusions to the Penta- 
teuch, 52, note 
Jiilicher, 109, 131, 171 
Juvenal, 129, note 

Kautzsch und Socin, 142, note 
Kayser, 109, 141, note 
Keil, 56, note, 81 and note 
Kings, Books of, allusions to the 

Pentateuch, 53, note 
Knobel, 76, 77, note 
Konig, 142, note 
Kuenen, 130, 131, 141 and note, 

165, 169 
Kueper, 56, note 
Kurtz, 81 and note, 105 

Lamentations, its place in the 

order of the Hebrew Canon, 6 
Laws, their language points to 

Moses as their author, 39, 40 ; 

written in the wilderness, 41 ; 

could not be a forgery, 42, 155 ; 

their locality significant, 42 
Le Clerc, 49 
Legislation in three localities, 25, 

26 
Leviticus, analysis of, 26, 27 
Literary attractions of the Bible, 

172 
Literary critics, their diversities 

and points of agreement, 135 

McCurdy, Professor, 114, note 

Madvig, 129, note 

Mead, Professor, 125, 143, note 

Merx, 141, note 

Micah, allusions to the Penta- 
teuch, 55, note 

Miracles denied or explained 
away, 165 

Modified document hypothesis, 
82, 83 ; its difficulties, 84-87 

Moses the author of the Penta- 



teuch, 31 ; traditional belief, 
sanctioned by the New Testa- 
ment, 32 ; testimony of the 
Old Testament, 33-35; claim 
of the Pentateuch itself, 36- 
39 ; confirmed by the language 
of the laws, 39-41 ; allusions 
in later books of the Bible, 
42, 43 ; authority in the Ten 
Tribes, 43 ; elementary char- 
acter, Egyptian allusions, 45 
Munhall, Dr., 143, note 

Negative types, 11 

New Testament, its universality, 
written in Greek, 1 ; testimony 
to Moses's authorship, 32, 33 

Nibelungenlied, 127 

Numbers, analysis of, 27 

Objections to Moses's author- 
ship classified, 46 ; the earliest, 
47~ 

Oehler, 9, note 

Old Testament addressed to Is- 
rael, in their language, by 
many writers, 1 ; its organic 
structure, 2, 3 ; its testimony 
to the authorship of Moses, 
33-35 

Organic structure of the Old 
Testament, 2, 3, 9 ; two meth- 
ods of investigating it, 7 ; ad- 
vantages of the second method, 
10 ; their results compared, 
15-17 

Origen, canon of, 6 

Osgood, Dr. Howard, 62, note 

Parallel passages made an ar- 
gument for partition, 64 ; and 
for contradictions, 70 ; dis- 
cussed, 109-112 

Partition hypotheses futile, yet 



INDEX 



183 



serviceable to the cause of 
truth, 132, 133 ; elaborated in 
the interest of unbelief, 157, 
165 ; acceptance by evangelical 
scholars does not neutralize 
their pernicious tendencies, 
166, 177 

Patriarchal period, 20 

Pentateuch, its position in the 
plan of the Old Testament, 8, 
9, 13 ; its plan and contents, 
18 sqq. ; how denominated, 
derivation of the word, antiq- 
uity of the quintuple divi- 
sion, names of the several 
books, 18 ; its theme, two prin- 
cipal sections, 19, 36 ; tabu- 
lated, 30 ; its importance, 31 ; 
written by Moses, 32-46 ; 
claims to be from Moses, 36- 
39 ; alluded to in later books 
of the Bible, 52-58, note ; its 
unity, 59 sqq.; process of its 
formation according to the 
critics, 159, 160 

People of God, ideas involved in, 
21 ; two stages, the family and 
the nation, 24 

Perspicacity claimed by the crit- 
ics, 126, 127 

Peyrerius, 48 

Plautus, 129, note 

Poetical books, their place in the 
plan of the Old Testament, 8, 
9, 14 

Positive types, 11 

Postdiluvian period, its aim, 20, 
21 

Predictions denied or explained 
away, 165 

Predictive periods negative and 
positive, 12, 13 

Priest code, 36, 136-140, 145. 146, 
148, 154 



Prodigal son, parable of, parti- 
tioned, 119-122 

Promises to the patriarchs, 24 

Prophecies in the Old Testament, 
their distribution, 11 

Prophetical books, their place in 
the plan of the Old Testament, 
9, 14 

Psalms, allusions to the Penta- 
teuch, 56, note 

Ranke, F. H., 76 and note 

Rationalistic exegesis, 174, 175 

Redactor proposed by Gramberg, 
63, note ; inconsistencies im- 
puted to him in Hupfeld's hy- 
pothesis, 86, 87 ; deals arbitra- 
rily with the text, 91 sqq., 161, 
163, 168-170 ; his mode of com- 
piling the Pentateuch, 159, 
160 ; not infallibly inspired, 
168 

Religion of the Bible based on 
historical facts, 165 

Rephidim, narrative of the bat- 
tle there recorded by Moses, 
37, 38 

Reuss, 142, note 

Revealed religion antagonized by 
critical hypotheses, 164 sqq. 

Revelations of truth denied or ex- 
plained away, 165 

Robertson, Prof essor J. , 143, note 

Romans Dissected, 125 

Rupprecht, 142, note 

Ruth, its position in the order of 
the canon, 6, 7 ; allusions to 
the Pentateuch, 52, note 

Sackifices elsewhere than at the 
sanctuary and by others than 
priests, 150-153 

Samaritan, the Good, parable of, 
partitioned, 122-125 



184 



INDEX 



Samaritan Pentateuch, 44 
Samuel, Books of, allusions to 

the Pentateuch, 52, 53, note 
Samuel, offering sacrifice, 152, 

153 
Schmauk, Professor, 143, note 
Schrader, 83, note 
Scriptural statements regarding 

the Pentateuchal Codes, 144- 

146 
Second Elohist of Hupfeld, 83- 

85 
Segregation of the chosen race, 

20,24 
Seth and his pious descendants, 

23 
Sime, J., Esq., 143, note 
Simon, Richard, 48 
Sinai, laws given there, 26 
Smith, Dr. W. Robertson, 142, 

note 
Spinoza, 48 
Stade, 130, 165, 171 
Stahelin, 76, 77, note 
Station-list attributed to Moses, 

its significance, 38 
Style, diversity of, as an argu- 
ment for partition, 65, 66, 113 

sqq. 
Subscriptions made an argument 

for the fragment hypothesis, 74 
Summary statements followed by 

particulars made a pretext for 

partition, 111 
Supernatural in the Bible, 173 ; 

three modes of getting rid of 

it, 174-177 
Supplement hypothesis, 76-78 ; 



encumbered with difficulties, 
78-80 ; overturned by the de- 
velopment hypothesis, 142, 143 

Symbols used in Pentateuch crit- 
icism, 88 

Synonyms, no proof of different 
writers, 115 

Tertullian, 63, note 

Textual changes arbitrarily made 

by critics destructive of their 

own hypothesis, 90, 98, 99 
Titles made an argument for the 

fragment hypothesis, 74 
Tuch, 76, 77, note 
Types, negative and positive, 

their distribution, 11 

Unity of the Pentateuch, 59-133 

Vater, 71 and note 

Violations of the law, no proof 

of its non-existence, 150-153 
Vitringa, 61 
Vos, Professor, 143, note 

Warfield, Dr., 129 

Watts, Professor R., 142, note 
Wellhausen, 109, 112, 117, 130. 

131, 141 and note, 142, note. 

165, 169, 171 
Welte, 81 and note 
West, Professor, 127, 129, note 
Wildeboer, 142, note 
Witsius, 49 

Zahn, A., 142, note 
Zenos, Professor, 155 






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